


england has my bones

by tilthesundies



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Louis in Lingerie, M/M, Non AU, unconventional bathtub sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-24 03:22:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14346948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tilthesundies/pseuds/tilthesundies
Summary: The next time Harry thinks about calling, it’s 4.14 in the morning on a Parisian hotel balcony.





	england has my bones

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively summarized as: they fix it in Paris.
> 
> bonus: [here](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/paris/hotels/shangri-la-hotel-paris/) is where you can look at pictures of the shangri-la to get a Real feel of where they're at

Harry catches the performance on television.

He’s sat on his settee with a cream throw over his lap and local pastry ruins fallen to his shirt and lap, winter collapsing into a fit against the roof of his home. There’s nothing about his shite appearance and captive radio silence that imprisons his fingers against the remote when the sight of Louis drowning in a yellow hoodie comes alive in colourful moving pictures, but he just can’t bring himself to turn the channel.

Harry’s eyes are drawn to the way Louis grips the microphone like it has no sense of gravity, fingers falling down as he rocks his body and sings from it like a songbird.

He doesn’t turn the channel — not until he’s sure he won’t make another appearance for the rest of the show — but he does think of calling.

 

 

 

Harry thought of calling that entire night, then he thought of calling him the morning after, during lunch, his R&R tea after dinner . . . then he slept; — woke up again in the heat of Louis’s face — but it wasn’t prominent as the hours ticked on.

In fact, he managed to forget him hours at a time. But it was rinse, wash, and repeat for an entire week.

He sits, now, with this constant thrumming on the edges of his mind of the movie in his head of his index finger pressing the blue call button under Louis’s contact picture and bringing the phone to his ear, an inaudible conversation on the close up of his moving lips. They haven’t talked since Louis had sent him a text congratulating him on the release of his album back in the springtime, but all Harry had sent back was, _Thank you_ , a _read 9:12pm_ underneath it the following night.

Before then, it becomes fuzzy.

Someone could tell him they never talked to each other during their whole lives, and he could partially believe it. But his teeth would talk back, licking and spitting imagery of the bruises they had sunk into Louis’s back and neck.

He still doesn’t call.

 

 

 

The next time he thinks about calling, it’s 4.14 in the morning on a Parisian hotel balcony, halfway through his second fag.

His eyes are on the Eiffel Tower, mind only mildly interested at the glowing light weaved within itself casts dimly against the black skyline. He’s seen it in person many times, and at first visit it was a wondrous thing, but the novelty wore off years ago. It’s rather dull to him now. Maybe even a little overrated. But he appreciates Paris as a whole; the melancholic beauty it offers to him is one that he doubts would ever be elusive to him.

The winter air is a bird in flight, brushing against the barest parts of him: his thighs, legs, feet, face. He’s wearing a sweater that’s a size too big on him, the only thing covering him that’s not his briefs, and perhaps it wasn’t his greatest idea, but he’s a man of an awful book of them. Harry’s subconscious drips into the forefront of his mind, and he doesn’t fully acknowledge he’s seeing fragments of Louis’s body and mind and face in the tower until he’s down to the last bits of his fag and the crisp air keeps chipping pieces of his illusion away.

He could be in London, Los Angeles, New York — he could even be in Czech; and if he were, Harry would never know.

He’s never been, but he’s sure the pictures online don’t do its country’s beauty justice.

Turning, he reaches for his phone on the small black table, and turns to the skyline as his face glows in the halo of his bright screen. He presses the button, and it’s shamelessly already opened to Louis’s contact. Harry stares at it, unmoving — unable to gather the voice to coordinate his muscles — for many moments.

Then he hits the call on a encouraging whisper from the night, pressing it to his ear.

One — eyes darting from building to building — two — left to right — three — dropping to the streets below him — four — stilling on the thin, black railing he leans his elbows on in anticipation — five —

“Hello?” Louis’s soft voice fills his ear against the dark and silent night.

It’s a brand new crack in a version of him that hasn’t had the privilege of Louis talking directly to him in months he could count on both his hands and feet; the thrill of a new cassette tape he’s listening to for the first time in a scene full of muted colours that trap his voice just for but a mere moment.

It’s foreign and familiar like the Paris skyline.

“Hey,” Harry returns. His own voice is a little rough, but it’s disuse and smoke. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

A brief pause.

“No,” Louis tells him, just as quiet, “you didn't. I was already up.”

Harry lets out a little breath, blinking. “Good. Um. How are you?”

“Fine. A bit tired. . . . You?”

“About the same.” He clears his throat, straightens himself as he wraps an arm around himself. “Listen, I have a proposition for you, if you’re interested,” he offers.

Louis doesn’t react. “What is it?”

“I’m in Paris,” he says, dropping an arm as he looks over the city. There’s a slight disbelieving smile touching his lips. “Come meet me.”

“ _Paris_? Harry, I’m not—I can’t just drop everything and fly to you. Is that really what you’re calling me at 3 A.M. for?”

Is it such a sin to want to share this view with him?

“I’ll pay your way,” Harry tries.

“ _No_ —”

“I’ll pay your way, and buy you those tiny croissants you enjoy, and those fruit baskets, and bathe you in champagne,” he continues.

Louis gives a frustrated sigh. “Why?” he demands.

Heart and voice trapped in the outside of his ribs towards the back, he stops short. In his head, he keeps seeing his phone slipping right out of the palm of his hand and falling, spinning as it goes, before it then meets the ground. It’s so repetitive that he has to take a step back from the railing to ensure it won’t just happen without his control.

“I . . . ,” he trails off quietly.

“If you tell me, I’ll come.”

The words are sure and firm in their softness.

“I just thought since I haven’t seen you in so long we could — I don’t know — maybe catch up,” Harry explains, “while I’m here.”

His explanation is cowardly to his ears because they aren’t the words he has locked in a cage on the precipice of his subconscious. He’s short on time, and he doesn’t know where to dig for the key that frees them; and, perhaps, he’s seen it in the same spot all his life.

Louis is silent for indefinite seconds.

“You do realise it is almost Christmas, right?” he eventually comes to say. “It’s like — five days away now that it’s after midnight.”

“I do,” Harry says without much care. He’s busy pulling out another fag from the pack laying on the table, and trying to light it whilst keeping his phone in place against his shoulder. “So, is that a yes or no?”

Louis must be too close to the speaker because his heavy sigh comes in with far too much static.

“Text me the address.”

He hangs up.

Harry does just that with a soft smile on his face.

 

  
  
Harry is lying down on top of the perfectly put together bed at around six in the morning, forming lyrics in his head with his hands moving artistically in the air to a silent symphony, the dim room lighting reflecting in the stones of his rings, when a knocking comes from the direction of the door. Without a thought in his head, his upper body bolts upright, wild, burning eyes watching the air that flows from the hall and eases itself into the rest of the luxurious room before he actually stands and makes his way over.

He runs a hand through the messy curls lying on top of his head and down into the shaved hair in the back, then adjusting his sweater.

He’s still only in his sweater and briefs.

Harry unlocks the door, pulling it open in the same breath, and blinks at the sight of Louis.

Louis has Harry’s Green Bay Packers beanie covering the crown of his head, body covered in a cozy, baggy grey tracksuit, a large black overnight bag hanging off his shoulder. Faint bags rest underneath his eyes, and his skin is smooth and free of any facial hair, but he gives Harry a small, soft smile that lifts the dullness in his eyes.

Harry hasn’t seen him for a better part of a year, and he’s not sure if he should swoop him in for a hug like he would’ve done any given day before.

“Hey,” Louis murmurs, just as quiet as he was on the phone.

“Hi,” he replies.

Pulling the door with him, he steps out of the way and gestures for Louis to come inside.

Louis strolls in past Harry without a glance at him, but his eyes dance carefully around every detailing of the artfully decorated room of his: to the walls drenched in soft powder blue and matching the bed and intrinsic carpet floor and the dress a lady in the massive painting near the ceiling high double French doors is wearing, the furniture an off, deeper yellow that brings a homely and appealing, comfortable contrast to the varying shades of complementary blues — tilting his head backwards to look at the glistening chandelier hanging from the high ceiling just before the foot of the bed.

“I feel like I’m in nineteenth century France,” Louis comments, dropping his bag onto the blue end of the bed bench, head turned to the French doors mere feet away overlooking the view of the Eiffel Tower that’s within an arm’s reach.

Harry walks over, but keeps his distance.

“Wrong clothes you got, then.”

He looks over to Harry — and, normally, with this look it would reflect soft affection and a head tilt that begged him to be kissed on the lips, but with this look there’s only a tired exasperation that begs Harry an opposite.

“I’m gonna brush my teeth, then sleep,” he tells Harry as he unzips his bag and collects his essentials, a couple thin articles of clothing trapped between his knuckles.

He disappears into the bathroom, and Harry just stands there, unsure.

When he comes back, he’s dressed in only a thin white t-shirt and loose pyjama shorts that match the darker blue colour of the drawn curtains of the balcony doors. He stuffs his trackies and beanie into his bag, then makes his way around the left side of the bed to enter it, lifting the heavy sheets and climbing under.

He settles his gaze on Harry once he’s tucked in, head resting against the white pillow.

“You coming to bed?”

Harry nods silently after a beat, then finds the lightswitch to turn off the chandelier. Room cloaked drastically in darkness, he finds his way to the right side and settles under as Louis reaches out to turn off the lamp on his bedside; the only light now offered to them is the natural light of the night seeping inside, light of the Tower reflecting and blending into it. He turns over on his side after lying still on his back, eyes meeting Louis’s back. He adjusts his head, and slides a hand up to grip the corner of his pillow as he stares at the dip in his waist and the fragile outline of his body until sleeps finds him.

 

 

  
  
Harry wakes up hearing the running water of the shower.

He curls his body further into himself before trying to nod back off, but heavy knocks come from the direction of the door. The bed is much too comfortable and warm for him to be disturbed like this, but he begrudgingly opens his eyes and removes the covers off of him and stands to make his way over.

“Good morning,” a young and vibrant French woman says to him as soon as he opens the door, a food trolley with silver covers over a few different plates she pushes in when he moves to the side.

Louis must’ve ordered them breakfast beforehand. Or he ordered it all for himself and planned to tell Harry to fend for himself.

It’s happened.

“Thank you,” he tells her as she sets the trolley near the settee facing the bed a couple metres away.

She smiles at him. “Is there anything else you may need?”

Harry hesitates. “Uh — I don’t think so, no. But thank you.”

She nods and shows herself out before he can do it himself, and Harry busies himself by lifting the metal covers and peeking into each plate as he waits for Louis to get out of the shower, picking at them all except for the ones with the crispy waffles he knows are Louis’. He’d cut Harry’s fingers off if he found out Harry was nibbling on them before he could even get the first bite, so, he mostly sticks to the bowl of berries.

Minutes later, Louis comes out dressed in jeans and an oversized olive green jumper, hair flat and damp, little drying bits at the back of his neck curling some, and he looks less tired than he did last night.

“I almost forgot how fucking long you take in the shower,” Harry says.

“Piss off,” Louis responds without heat, coming over and taking his plate of waffles and walking off towards the balcony doors.

Harry pulls the trolley along behind himself as he trails after Louis.

After giving Louis his _thé_ , setting aside his own _café au lait_ , and distributing the plates on the small table out on the balcony, they sit and eat in quiet. There’s a chilled breeze that blows and brushes against them without mercy; it’s not ideal for sitting outside and eating, as it cools off their drinks and food much faster, and Harry becomes cold to the core due to his lack of clothing, but it offers them a beautiful view of a grey, cloudy sky that moves slowly and casts a dreary and calm aura onto buildings and the Tower and busy streets below, enhancing the hues of trees and nature.

Louis typically hates sitting outside in this weather.

He grumbles like an old man, mutters about how cold he is and pokes at Harry’s feet with his own for no other reason than to get his attention, and Harry ignores him.

He finds it cute, but he still ignores him because he knows Louis doesn’t like when he does. But now he’s quiet. He has a quarter of a waffle left on his plate, knife leaning against it and fork on top. He’s staring at the world behind Harry over the brim of his cup, cool and unreadable gaze drifting farther away from Harry’s left, as he leans on the table with his left arm.

He’s unnervingly calm.

“I, um,” begins Harry, clears his throat gently as Louis’s gaze smoothly slides over to meet his, “haven’t properly congratulated you on your songs. I think they’re really good. So, I’m happy for you.”

Louis stares at him.

“Thanks.”

He says nothing else, and Harry sucks in a resigned breath knowing he’ll have to do the work.

“How are you doing? How is everyone?”

“I’m fine,” Louis says as he sets his tea down, nodding. “So is everyone else.”

“Are you?” Harry asks. He feels his heart melt hotly and pour itself all over his chest cavity as his tongue impulsively pushes at the buttons at the back of Louis’s spine. Louis’s eyes have narrowed slightly. “I feel like you’re a little mad.”

Louis’s continuous quietness further turns the temperature up in his chest.

“I am a little peeved,” he calmly admits to Harry.

Harry thought last night it was probably because of how tired he was — no, he takes that back; he had selfishly _hoped_ it was, because he didn’t want it to be about himself. Maybe he was intruding like he always does, and Louis, like _he_ always does, humoured Harry and came to him because it’s what he does whenever Harry calls him like this.

He feels like he’s forcing it out of himself when he asks Louis why.

But Louis doesn’t answer him. He simply lifts his tea, takes a sip, and pats a neatly folded napkin to his mouth, then drops it to his plate and scoots his chair back to stand up and leave — completely abandoning Harry.

Harry watches him walk off, but he doesn’t call for him.

Instead, he chooses to finish his meal in the bloody cold and let Louis deal with whatever is holding him down.

After he finishes, he cleans up, and stacks dishes on top of one another and sets it all on the trolley. He repeatedly sneaks glances at Louis as he does this, and Louis doesn’t pay him any mind as he sits sideways on the settee with his feet propped up on a small, black accent table occupied with a vase holding white flowers surrounded by tall green leaves, book opened in his lap and reading. Sighing inaudibly, Harry leaves the trolley at the door and goes into the bathroom with clothes he retrieves and locks himself in to take a shower.

He comes back out with a towel wrapped low around his hips, hand pushing back his wet hair, to get his phone he left on the nightstand.

“You know, you could preserve _some_ modesty.”

Harry turns around to find Louis looking directly at him. He glances down at himself and raises his eyebrows.

“Is the towel not enough?” he asks.

“Not when I can see the outline of your dick when you walk,” Louis casually replies.

“It’s not anything you haven’t seen a few times before,” Harry counters.

Removing his feet to the floor, Louis makes a face and tilts his head in agreement as he leans forward in the settee and closes his book. “No argument there. So, what’s on the agenda?”

Harry saunters over to lean against the armrest next to Louis.

He feels warm, subtle satisfaction seep into the pores of his skin and mold itself into the skin around his eyes and mouth when he sees Louis’s eyes linger on his naked chest after turning his head and tilting it back to look up at him. In response, he leans a little further back, resting his left elbow on the back of the settee as his fingers toy with the back cushion.

Louis cuts his eyes away in the opposite direction.

“I was thinking,” begins Harry, “that we could just do whatever we felt like. Roam the streets like wild cats. Visit the café you really like—”

Louis’s head whips around. “Odette? Or do you mean Ladurée?”

Harry’s mouth stretches into a small and soft winning smile. “Both. We can shop, then buy your macarons at Ladurée before we have afternoon tea at Odette — _or_ we can buy the macarons beforehand and you can eat them _as_ we shop before going for tea. I mean, it’s fine either way; up to you.”

Louis’s a terribly indecisive person, and he already sees it coming through with the slight furrow in his eyebrows and puckered lips.

“I’m not sure,” he says, face relaxing. “How about we just judge as we go?”

“Perfect,” Harry says as he pushes himself away and ventures back to the bathroom. “Are you ready?”

“You’re the one who’s naked,” Louis calls back.

His chuckle comes out in a puff as he rolls his eyes, shaking his head. He changes with the door wide open, baring everything he has to the world and Louis’, no fear in the possibility and open invitation he’s given Louis to stare; oh — and he could. Eyes that have touched every part of the warm skin time and time again, and with no fear and no shame. Eyes that have become shy every instance he was caught, matching mouth begging for a kiss following Harry’s approach, begging for a touch in return.

There’s no heavy set of eyes. There’s no begging. There’s the sound of preoccupied footsteps and commotion in the distance and the weird, hollow echoing against Harry’s brittle bones.

 

  
  
They set off into the streets of Paris.

Bearing long coats over their sweaters turns the grey weather into something bearable. Wind still travels, but scarves protect their delicate mouths from the harshness, whilst Louis carries an umbrella in his one hand in case it were to rain. He also decides he wants his macarons before window shopping, and they spend a terribly long time in Ladurée because Louis can’t make his mind _even though_ he places the same damn order each and every time they come here.

Harry buys his own set of caramel macarons just for the trouble and eats them as they walk down the streets.

He and Louis don’t walk them very long before Louis says on a whim that he wants to go to Bercy Village, and they haul a taxi there. It’s a roughly twenty-five minute ride that’s steeped in still, winter air. Harry’s gaze drifts from the outside world to Louis throughout it, but Louis doesn’t look at him once.

 

  
  
They arrive back at Shangri-La late into the night.

Harry offered the suggestion of eating at a restaurant he’s been wanting to go back to, but Louis politely declined — said he’d rather just order something from the hotel kitchen. Harry may be a little let down at that, chest a little sunken in, but he understood. Plus, the hotel kitchen makes some amazing, high quality food and desserts, so, he’s not particularly mindful, either.

“I’m gonna go to the spa room,” Louis informs him as soon as they’re inside their suite.

Harry’s sat on the edge of the bed, one foot under his leg that’s hanging off the bed as his eyes follow Louis around the room, searching for something he can’t find.

“Did you want me to wait for you, then?” he asks belatedly.

Louis finds whatever it is he was looking for and stuffs it in his pocket as he stands up and turns around to return Harry’s gaze.

“No,” he says. “You don’t have to. It’ll be a while before I get back. So, just eat without me.”

Dropping his eyes briefly, he nods. “All right. Have fun.”

The smile he gives Harry is fleeting as he exits, taking all of the lively air in one bubble as the door closes shut behind himself.

Harry heaves a sigh, lifting a hand to brush it through his windswept hair, and stands to slowly unwind his long scarf from around his neck and his coat. Louis’s been abnormally silent throughout the day and he can’t deny that it keeps gnawing at the edges of his conscious what is almost constantly. Their sightseeing in Bercy was only filled with the occasional soft comments through the many hours they were there; and the worst was Louis hardly seemed affected by it.

He browsed through all the shops, brushing clothes and antiques and whatever else his fingers could touch, all the while perfectly at ease and like Harry wasn’t following his every step, and the only way he could bear it was by purchasing the biggest order of chips he could at Five Guys and smaller samples of a lot of the food he saw along the way.

He needed something to busy his mouth, and food tends to be the best and worst option.

But now he’s tired of thinking.

Gathering sweats from his bag, he changes and heads to the indoor gym.

 

  
  
Harry comes back all sweaty and panting.

He grips his soaked shirt from the back of his neck and pulls it up over his head and removes the headband holding his short hair back. He wipes his face on a dry area of his shirt and balls it up, wraps his headband around the material to secure it, and sets it on a chair he passes by to his way to the bathroom.

Turning on one of the two sinks, he douses his hands into the cold water and looks up into the mirror.

He almost flinches at the sight of Louis in the bathtub filled with foam bubbling high and low, a tall champagne glass next to a single candle with its flame in a straight line. He’s staring right back at Harry in the mirror.

“I didn’t know you were back,” Harry says. “How was it?”

“Not bad,” Louis answers, lifting an arm out of the water to grab his glass, foam clinging to his forearm, “was really relaxing. Didn’t know I had so much tension in my muscles, but I feel brand new now.”

“That’s good.”

Louis hums in agreement as he takes a sip.

Bending forward, Harry splashes the warmed water against his skin and uses the soap bar to lather his forehead, temples, and nose, rinsing it away before patting his face with a clean washcloth laying atop a pile of them off to the side.

He turns around, pushing his hair back. “I was going to shower, but I’ll wait until you’re done,” he tells Louis.

“No need,” Louis assures him coolly, and stands up.

His body drips with water, foam dispersed all over his figure and not hiding any private part of him. He’s completely nude, and Harry swallows as he watches Louis step out and saunter over until he’s stood right in front of Harry with total and utter ease and indifference.

“You, uh,” Harry says, “. . . didn’t have to do that.”

Louis simply looks up at him as he tilts his head forward slightly to take another sip of his champagne.

“How was your workout?” he asks Harry.

Harry’s having a difficult time keeping his eyes focused on Louis’s face, and there’s this tiny, wicked diamond in his eyes that suggests he knows. “Tough. I might’ve went a little overboard, so, I think I’ll be feeling it in the morning. Probably.”

Louis hums, sucking in his bottom lip just a bit. “Sucks,” he says monotonously as he reaches around Harry for a towel.

He practically presses his body against Harry’s, but Harry manages space between them, leaning back as Louis leans forwards and briefly averting his eyes to the side. Whatever tricks the masseuse or masseur used on Louis seemed to also ease whatever cold shoulder he has been giving Harry since he arrived, which has Harry furrowing his eyebrows.

The towel unravels in front of Louis, immediately covering his dick, but he doesn’t wrap it around himself.

Harry pretends to ignore it.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?” Louis’s face has relaxed, but it’s unreadable. “What?”

“Are you mad at me?” Harry asks, eyes searching Louis’s. “Because if I’ve done something wrong . . .”

Louis looks more honest this time when he sighs softly through his nose and steps around Harry to set his champagne glass on the counter — like one of his veils has dropped. He ties the towel around his hips as Harry turns towards him, and he looks up to stare him right in the eye without blinking.

“I _am_ mad at you,” he admits carefully. “But I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Why not?” Harry provokes without forethought. “We fight every other time you come here. So, what’s the difference if you shout at me right now?”

It’s the furthest thing from a lie, because it happens all the time. Harry calls him, Louis comes, they fight, they fuck. It’s fucking routine; it’s all they _do_. Then when it’s all over, Louis leaves.

By now, they would’ve fucked at least once.

But this time it’s different; Harry feels it in the way the air from Louis brushes him and whispers negative things into his blood. He feels it in the way his hands have neglected Louis’s skin and Louis’s eyes have barely acknowledged him. It’s been silently strained between them all day, and he doesn’t plan on enduring this for five full days.

He doesn’t know if he can do that.

“Because I don’t want to do this anymore,” Louis says, and his eyebrows are furrowed, eyes grown in roundness as he stares at Harry; and he’s capable of being beckoned into anger and Harry’s going to push him there. “This is the last time I’m going to be mad at you because I refuse to fight with you after this.”

“Then why did you come at all, Louis,” beckons Harry, “if you knew we were going to do that?”

“Because I can’t fucking say no to you. As hard as I try, it either blows up in my face or I miss you too much. It’s been a _year_ since I’ve spoken to you.”

Louis’s always been difficult to persuade into flying wherever he is, and it’s only gotten worse as the years go by. But it was a slight shock to Harry when he put up such a small fight when he called him, because him denying Harry became part of their routine; it became part of the chase.

And though Harry will never admit it, he’s missed Louis, too.

“Kiss me, then.” His voice has gone quiet.

Louis doesn’t react to his words.

“Kiss me,” Harry repeats, taking one step forward, voice easily mistaken for a soft plea.

Louis’s eyes drop to his mouth, crevices of his face softening the longer he gazes at Harry’s lips. Then, slowly, he closes the distance between them and lifts his hands to Harry’s face, eyes briefly glancing to his as he lightly touches his cheeks and drops them to grip his neck, interlocking his fingers against his nape.

Louis pulls him down and presses his mouth to Harry’s, kissing him softly.

Pulse skyrocketing, Harry takes it to heart. He presses his lower half to Louis’s, moving his mouth in controlled, precise movements that overpower Louis’s kisses.

His lips are smooth against Harry’s — he tastes of champagne; of gold glory residing in a glass bottle. He’s soft in Harry’s hands, but Harry doesn’t want soft: he wants control. He bites Louis’s bottom lip on a kiss that Louis pulls back from, driving a shaky breath from him that falls from Louis’s nose, and he continues loading his kisses — pressing himself further into Louis with intention and rubbing against his dick that’s covered with the thin towel.

Louis whines softly in his throat at the prolonged pressure Harry presses along his front.

Bringing his hands up, he grips the sides of Louis’s face and drags his lips from his mouth and across his cheek, all the way to his ear. “Turn around for me, _mon beau_ ,” he quietly says into Louis’s ear.

Louis exhales shakily when Harry kisses his earlobe gently and bites it just as so.

He does as he’s told silently and turns around, and Harry’s hands fall from his face to brush his neck, his nape, shoulders, down his back, until they settle on the middle of his waist. He leans into Louis and reaches around him, untying the towel and letting it drop to the floor.

Harry hums as he traces his fingers over Louis’s hips, moving them down to grip his thighs tightly, digging roughly into the muscle.

“Bend for me, baby.”

Louis bends forward readily, laying his arms and head on the bathroom vanity.

Harry’s hands fall from Louis’s thighs, trail along the knobs of his spine; his arse is touching Harry’s crotch, and it’d be far too easy to get off like this: rub himself against Louis in a steady rhythm until he makes himself come and leave Louis untouched, dissatisfied, and crying for something — _pleading_ for any sort of relief.

He envisions it so perfectly behind his eyelids, and the consideration is so strong. But he doesn’t. He could never have the willpower to do that to his boy unless it was requested by Louis himself.

“You should really get on with it before I take my business elsewhere,” Louis speaks for the first time.

Harry laughs, something low and deep.

“Sweetheart,” he says, sweet and slow and knowing all the better, as he crouches and becomes eye level with Louis’s arse, “if you were really going to take it somewhere else, you would’ve done it after the first time three and a half years ago. But you keep coming back.”

He spreads Louis open without waiting for a response.

He’s smooth for the most part, sparse, soft hairs following a line in the middle of him above his hole. He moves his right hand to Louis’s hole, playing with it gently with his forefinger as he kneads Louis in his left hand. He’s a little pink following the path of his taint, but the hole itself is dry and a little darker than the rest of him and the outer skin is slightly wrinkly and he’s so pretty that Harry can’t help pressing his lips to him in a soft kiss.

He dips just the tip of his finger inside, and he doesn’t miss Louis’s hardening cock twitch from rubbing him.

Harry drags his gaze up. “Do you like that, _ch_ _éri_?”

“I do,” Louis quietly admits.

He takes his finger away from Louis’s hole and reaches forward to wrap his hand around Louis’s cock, and starts tugging on him to get him completely hard.

“Don’t be quiet, baby,” he murmurs. “I want to hear you. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours? Are you thinking of my mouth on you? Are you thinking of how good it feels when I go in deep and drag it out slow — when I pull you apart and just take my time to get you on the edge then only to neglect you, leaving you hanging?”

As he strokes roughly this time with a tight grip, a small spurt of precome gets on Harry’s hand and a desperate moan comes from Louis.

The head of his cock and balls are flushing a pretty pink colour and, bearing mercy, Harry strokes him twice more with his other hand before then leaving it alone to better coat his fore and middle finger in Louis’s come.

He smirks to himself as he stands to his feet, but it fades. “Answer me.”

“I am,” Louis answers brokenly, “I’m thinking about you eating me out — want it badly.”

Harry caresses his clean hand along Louis’s tailbone, making a disapproving sound. “But that’s a reward. You need to earn it. And you’ve earned nothing, _mon amour_.”

He pulls Louis’s cheeks apart and sticks his finger into his hole without warning, and a small, satisfied moan is drawn from inside Louis’s chest. He’s slow and shallow, moving at a superficial speed as he watches Louis’s hole ease and relax and open up in trust, and when it does, he kneels and touches Louis’s cock with his other hand until more precome dribbles out to reapply to his fingers.

Harry becomes so transfixed staring at his hole that he finds himself leaning forward to kiss it; they’re small, languid kisses where he doesn’t part his mouth from the skin. He allows just the tip of his tongue to enter, and he teases the edges long enough to get Louis whimpering sadly and impatiently, pushing back for more.

Harry pulls back as he chuckles. “Absolutely not,” he says with finality.

“That’s not fair,” Louis whines, frustrated.

“All’s fair in sex and war.”

He follows it up by inserting his finger back in Louis, along with his middle one. A pleased moan falls from Louis’s mouth, and it’s drawn out when he massages his way in past the second knuckles.

But Louis manages to collect himself enough to speak. “That’s not the correct saying.”

Harry’s nonchalant. “Sure it is.”

“You’d better fucking remember that, then.”

Louis’s words provoke a self-satisfied smile out of Harry that paints itself across his mouth. A bubble of jubilation fills the back of his throat from being on the receiving end of innocuous hostility, and it’s sometimes hard to contain — and sometimes he doesn’t and he laughs and gets kicked in retaliation.

He finds Louis’s prostate in very little time, brushing his fingers against it the way he remembers Louis liking it.

Louis jerks, cusses as he spreads his legs further and whines.

“Baby,” Harry coos as he runs a soothing hand up and down his smooth inner thigh, “you still like that, huh?” Spreading his fingers as best as he can, he fucks into him, hitting his prostate repeatedly then brushing past it completely just to torture Louis. “Nothing’s changed, has it? If I fucked you with my cock right here instead, you’d still want your hands pinned to the vanity, entirely helpless? And you’d want me to go fast and deep so you could arch your arse into the air to feel it right to your core and not think about anything other than how good I’m making you feel? Not a damn thing’s changed, has it, darling?”

Harry thrusts his fingers directly into his prostate, and Louis spreads his legs that much more.

“Oh, my fucking God,” he moans desperately, voice high and cracking. “Yes, that’s what I fucking _want_ , you dickhead.”

Harry smiles.

He leans forward to scrap his teeth against the skin of his bum and bites him. He hears Louis softly exhale a curse word and some other mumblings, so, he does it again and this time he sucks on it until he leaves a very visible red lovebite. After he pulls back, he rubs over it, knowing the spot is sensitive, and gives it a kiss.

Harry decides to be a little easy and wraps his hand around Louis’s very hard, red cock to give him relief and jerks him off as he continues to finger him at a faster pace.

“Fuck — _Harry_.”

“Yeah, baby?” Harry answers.

Another high pitched moan is pulled out of Louis before he can even speak, followed by little _uh_ s when Harry works his thumb over his slit. “I think—I’m gonna come,” he stutters out breathlessly.

“Oh, so soon?” Harry tries to say innocently, but his voice is octaves lower, rougher, and his own dick is twitching in his gym shorts at the mere mention of Louis going over the edge.

He’s been so busy thinking about Louis and making him feel good that he forgot about himself.

Three minutes later, when Harry’s grip on his cock tightens and he really digs his thumb into the slit as he thrusts his other fingers in as deep as he can go, Louis comes abruptly. Harry knows his mouth must be open and eyes in the direction of the ceiling, just like how it is the other hundreds of times he’s seen Louis reach this state. It’s all over Harry’s fist, the floor, and the mirrors that make up the front of the drawers in the vanity.

Dropping his hand, he removes his fingers from inside Louis, and he takes in a deep breath, standing in the loud silence and watching Louis’s back rise and settle until he decides to lift himself up.

Louis turns around to look at him, his cheeks tinted a soft pink and lips mildly irritated, dilated pupils returning to their normal size immediately; it’s the picture of shaken delicacy. The ends of his hair that reach his nape are drying horribly out of place, and he’s staring at Harry with an unwavering gaze with his mouth slightly parted, but he’s not saying anything.

Harry stares back. “I’m gonna take that shower now,” he says.

Louis’s eyes drift to the shower behind him and linger, then they briefly flit back to Harry, and he leaves the bathroom.

He leaves Harry standing there, with absolutely nothing in return.

 

 

Harry’s lying on top of the sheets of their bed afterwards.

Eyes closed, he listens to the Earth that blows itself inside from the slight opening of the balcony doors to his right, hands behind his head. He ordered Louis and himself room service, and it’s just a waiting game now, his empty stomach competing with the cold and filling him on the inside as the sounds and cold breeze touch him from the outside.

He hears the bathroom door close from the other end of the room, and Louis breathes out a very soft, quiet sigh. His steps move a little closer, then to the right, and it stops.

At the table, he unzips his bag, and Harry listens to him sifting through his belongings.

Louis becomes quiet a minute later, slight frustration in his sigh as he zips his bag back up. He was probably looking for something he now can’t find. But he still stands there in the same spot, unmoving, and Harry’s tempted to peek an eye open, see what could be wrong; maybe ask him if he needs help.

Then he’s moving.

His footsteps are slower with meaning, and he drifts to the left side as he crosses into Harry’s territory.

Harry’s chest oozes with heat when Louis stops at the corner of the bed, heart beating faster to survive the flood that overtakes his ribs as the seconds tick on by in silence — but he still refuses to look even though the bottom edges of his eyes are gnawing at him uncomfortably to disintegrate his willpower.

There’s a dip in the bed when Louis kneels onto it.

He slowly crawls over to Harry and lies down just inches under his armpit. He lays his head against Harry’s chest, bringing his hand up to rub Harry’s stomach up and down once before settling it.

After letting a few moments pass, Harry peeks an eye open, then both, to look down.

Louis’s fringe is soft, dry and gentle across his forehead, and short little hairs touch the top of his small ear. His gaze is cast downwards, and each time he blinks his long eyelashes brush against the tired skin underneath his eyes.

Harry removes his left hand from under his head and curls his fingers around Louis’s bicep, before then closing his eyes again with a deep, inaudible breath. 

They stay like this until the food arrives.

 

 

 

They spend their time at the palace of Versailles the next day.

Harry booked a tour guide and bought tickets for them in advance to avoid any kind of long queue, and they were right to when they arrive and see the lengthy line of people waiting patiently; a gloomy and dark shadow is cast over their part of the world under grey clouds, and the wind is kinder to their skin; it blows softer through the air and works the least it has since the day Harry landed.

But the trouble it causes him is greater.

While the palace is beyond extraordinarily beautiful and takes the breath out of even the dead — and the garden is all the same — his eyes continuously drift to Louis.

It’s not a conscious decision he makes, but throughout the half day they sacrifice to viewing the place he finds his eyes watching the various facial expressions he makes: the calm, attentive look and slightly furrowed eyebrows when the guide tells them interesting little things about the rooms they pass on through, the light of admiration twinkling in them when he’s faced with something he finds beauty in, the way he looks next to, or behind, himself to check if Harry’s still there when he’s been quiet too long.

And all of this rises from the arteries of Harry’s heart and into his head. It smears itself over every section of Harry’s brain and leaks into all of his nerves to fill him with this warm and numbing faceless feeling he doesn’t have a name for.

“That was good,” Louis comments quietly into the silence between them as they walk to the parking lot.

It’s nearing 5.00, and the stormy sky slowly turns into its darker, older twin.

Harry turns his head to look at Louis’s soft, detailed profile. “Just good?” he questions, left brow quirked gently. “I thought it was more than. The architecture was — bewitchingly winsome.”

A smile spreads across Louis’s face.

“Bewitchingly winsome,” he echos with humour.

“Am I wrong? Was it the worst time of your life? Did you feel like regurgitating all over King Louis XIV’s bed?”

Louis softly laughs.

“No,” he says with a quick glance to Harry. “To all three. You know I’ve wanted a proper tour of the palace for years; and it definitely exceeded my expectations. Definitely.”

Harry knows.

He saw it painted all over Louis’s face for every minute of it — the silver curiosity and rosy admiration. He was captivated by the palace, too, but there was something about watching Louis react actively and silently to everything that gave it something extra than if he had just been alone. And, now, as he watches Louis lift a hand to delicately fix stray hairs above his ear, he curls his fingers into his palms to restrain himself from replacing Louis’s hand with his own.

Harry’s done various things such as that over the years that it’s become natural — it’s become part of them — but it’s been different since the moment Louis arrived at his door in an odd spectrum.

He doesn’t even know if Louis’s still mad at him. Maybe. He wants to ask, but he’s fearful it’ll ruin the mood.

Clearing his throat, he hides his hands inside the pockets of his coat.

“So, where do you want to go? Until dinner. _And_ for dinner.”

“I don’t know if you should be asking me that,” Louis says with a light chuckle. “By the time I decide, it’ll be 7.30 and we’ll have to go.”

“You’re right,” Harry deadpans. “I can’t depend on you.”

Louis turns his head to look at him with a smile curving his mouth upwards. “Say that anymore serious and I might actually think you mean it.”

Harry laughs, and they come to find their rental car, but they sit idly in the lot for a bit to weigh their options. There’s not much of anything they’d like to do in the moment except eat, and it is one of the downfalls to France: most everyone eats at a specific time, and restaurants won’t open _until_ that specific time; and the one they’ve chosen to go to opens at seven o’clock, so, they’ve got two hours to kill.

“Just drive,” Louis says at one point.

Harry looks over to see his feet on the dashboard and him slouching in the seat.

“Where?”

Louis stays mute, but his face gives him an answer; the shine in the centre of his eyes as he stares out the windshield.

Leaving the area is easier, but once they get going on the road it’s awful. Every time they’re here and they rent a car and Harry drives, he curses all Parisians for their reckless tailgating and inability to stay on their fucking side of the road. And, every time, Louis is in the passenger seat laughing at his misery and frustration, and telling him it’ll be fine, and this time is no different.

Except, whilst laughing, he says, “Just ignore it, babe. You know it’ll never change.”

Harry exhales a deep sigh as they sit in the midst of all the messy traffic, gaze wandering over the confusion of who’s going which way.

A heavy weight settles warm and gentle atop his left hand that rests on the steering wheel. His lungs jerk abruptly and cause a stutter in his breathing, his eyes falling to Louis’s hand lightly gripping his clenched one, his thumb tracing over his knuckles. He glances at Louis to see him staring ahead of himself steadfastly before then drawing his hand back from Harry’s.

Nothing else happens.

 

 

La Boîte aux Lettres is a small, cozy restaurant with a comfortable atmosphere.

He and Louis are seated right by the door; Harry sits behind the window and Louis sits across from him to be able to look out of them. This place reminds Harry too much of a local pub and bar he could just walk into while wandering down a smaller village — or the pub and bar he could take family to: on the kind of days where he hasn’t seen them in months and they catch up on a lunch date; the kind of days he wants to be with a friend and have nothing to worry about; the kind of days where it’s raining outside and he’s on a quiet, calm date with someone and smiling too much.

“I think I’m going to order three different things,” Louis speaks up.

Harry looks up to see him staring at his hand he has stretched out and playing with. “You know your eyes are bigger than your belly,” he says. “You’re not gonna be able to eat all of that.”

“Then you can just eat what I don’t. You always do, anyway.”

It’s true.

A bad habit of Louis’ is claiming he’s starving, and he’ll buy or take too much of something only to not be able to finish it off due to his small stomach. It’s beneficial to Harry because Louis gives him everything he doesn’t eat; and he’s the only person that’s ever been willing to share his food, or to let Harry pick off his plate after he’s eaten his own meal. It’s just one of the few things that works out between them.

After they place their food order, it’s quiet.

Louis’s the one to talk about small things concerning what his dog has done or torn up this week, minor things Harry’s missed with his family, what boring events he’s gone to in the past year that he has a story about. Harry listens without offering anything in return aside from nodding and commenting at the right times because there’s no pressure to keep it going.

He gets almost halfway into his second plate before he complains about being too full, and Harry smiles into his burger.

“Shut up,” Louis tells him, “you’re so arrogant.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You don’t need to.”

It’s good.

 

 

Harry goes to the gym when they get back to the hotel.

But when he returns to their room, his eyebrows pull together at the sight of Louis sitting on the settee reading a French magazine with nothing covering his legs. He thinks nothing of it as he walks over to the nightstand next to their bed to plug in his phone. He turns around to casually tell Louis to put trousers or pyjamas or whatever he wants on so he doesn’t have to see his legs, but he stops in his tracks.

“Oh.”

It’s a muted word; it’s soft and unintentional, but it’s heard.

Louis’s eyes cut to Harry, and the look in them is off to Harry because it sits carefully between a blank and sharply aloof emotion.

“Yes?” Louis asks, calm and patient.

Harry gulps loudly.

His eyes keep being dragged back down to the black lace he sees peeking from underneath the mustard yellow sweater he’s draped in — _Harry’s_ mustard yellow sweater that Louis stole from his bag. His heart is racing fast in his chest, warm red blood lighting up the nerves of his breastbone as it travels north. He’s trying not to jump to conclusions, but the intricate detailing in the lace looks too much like Harry’s favourite pair that Louis has for it not to be.

“What are you wearing?” Harry tries to ask steadily, but the roughness to his voice gives him away.

Louis looks down at himself, and closes the magazine between his right index finger to tug on an edge of the sweater with his left hand.

“Oh, this old thing?” he clarifies with a brief glance up at Harry. “You bought it at Saks, remember? The one in Chicago, where you also saw that Gucci Bugs Bunny knit sweater you wanted, but didn’t—”

“Louis,” Harry cuts him off, firmly.

Louis’s mouth falls closed immediately as he stares up at Harry with wider eyes.

Harry returns his stare, but his mind is faltering under the pressure of the palpable air between them. “I didn’t buy it at Saks,” he adds, bringing his tone up to a cooler, relaxed one.

“Oh,” Louis says, blinking, and smoothly changes back to his aloof façade. “My bad, then.”

He lets the magazine fall back open and starts reading it again, but this time he brings his bare legs down from the coffee table and spreads them far apart. He drops a hand under the sweater to scratch a spot high on his stomach, successfully bunching the material up. It’s definitely done on purpose — and Harry’s man enough to admit a large part of his strength breaks off at the sight of Louis’s pretty, thick cock trapped inside and pointed to the direction of his stomach; the high waisted lace thong rides high on his hips and comes up to the middle of his waist, and Harry knows in the back there’s a narrow and hollow centre part that’s just decorative ribbon crossing over itself and up into a large, thin satin bow.

Harry knows this because it’s his fucking favourite lingerie piece that stands out from all the others Louis has and it turns him into a weak man.

Louis knows this, too.

Harry’s dick is very strained in his briefs just from thinking and seeing all of this.

Louis has plenty of both men’s and women’s lingerie, and men’s would be a more ideal choice because they are sometimes made with pouches for dick room, but Louis’s preference has always leaned towards women’s because he enjoys the way it’s not entirely comfortable for that. Louis likes that his cock has to settle against the tight fabric and fight for its right there, and the way it brings him closer to the edge if he rubs off on it when Harry’s playing with him.

“You’re evil,” Harry says, giving in and walking over to Louis, “you know that, baby?”

He drops onto his knees next to him and runs a hand up his sweaty face and into his hair. It’s too easy for his voice to go low and silky soft when he’s playing along with Louis and allowing him to set the scene.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Louis replies.

He doesn’t look at Harry once. Harry wraps a hand around Louis’s ankle and drags his fingers slowly up his smooth leg.

“I wasn’t talking about the jumper, but it does look lovely on you.”

“Oh,” Louis breathes out in soft realisation. He puts the magazine down on the sofa and lifts the jumper up to press his hand to the front of his knickers. “Are you talking about these? I was feeling really stuffy in my boxers, so, I hope you don’t mind.”

If he didn’t know who Louis was as a person, he’d think he was being quite genuine about it. But all he is is a good actor.

Harry crawls between his spread legs and places his hands on top of Louis’s knees. He can’t stop staring at the contrast of the black lace against Louis’s fair skin. He wants to lean forward and bury his head between his inner thighs and suck kisses into them, leave red and purple marks all over, then work his teeth up to the edges of the material and pull on it; he wants to slip a hand in while he’s kissing his most sensitive parts and work it over Louis’s cock until it’s painfully stiff and red and drippling precome from the tip to bring him to a desperate, frantic edge that provokes tears to the surface.

He moves his head in closer to make it a reality, but Louis stops him by threading his fingers through his curls and tipping his head back.

“Are you really gonna tempt me, and seduce me, by wearing my favourite knickers and being so open about it, but not let me touch you?” Harry says before Louis can speak first, voice gone raspy and rough. “It’s very cruel of you, _mon ange_.”

“You stink,” Louis states simply, and harshly releases him from his grip.

“I do no—”

Harry turns his head to sniff himself, and his face pulls together into a grimace. In _his_ defence, he planned to take a shower as soon as he got in, but he was ambushed.

“You need to shower before you do anything to me.”

Louis stands up, and for the briefest moment Harry’s submerged under heaven: he’s trapped between his legs, and, looking up, he’s exposed to Louis’s most intimate, thinly veiled bearings; it’s a holy sight that converted the darkest parts of himself years ago. And he lets his fingers reluctantly drop from around Louis’s calves as he steps away as quickly as he had been still. When Harry turns around to look at his backside, it’s blocked by the jumper that falls to mid-thigh.

Inconvenient.

Harry just gets up without a word and goes to the bathroom.

 

 

Louis took his bag.

Harry stands, dripping wet, in a towel tied around his hips and stares at the empty vanity in their bathroom. He hasn’t moved his bag from here for longer than a couple hours at a time than whenever Louis asked him to because he nags at Harry about it taking up too much space, but this is different.

He walks out of the bathroom prepared to bicker, but he stops at the sight of Louis.

He’s on his hands and knees with his arse sticking out at the end of the bed, round, full cheeks bare with the black cotton material of the actual thong carving itself into a narrow path from his tailbone to his crack, intricate lace detailing delicately touching along the skin of the top of his bum as it moves along with path, and he’s beautiful. Louis’s legs are spread far apart to expose the thong dipped and pressed far into his crack.

Harry takes so long to tear his eyes away to notice his jumper laying carelessly atop the pillows at the head of the bed, leaving Louis in only the thong.

“You couldn’t’ve waited just ten minutes?” Harry says as he moves in closer to the bed.

Louis looks back at him, a lot of the blue in his eyes replaced by his dilated pupils. He’s very unapologetic when he says, “I got bored after two minutes. I’m not going to wait for you for forever, darling.”

“I—”

Harry’s interrupted by a soft, gentle whine that escapes Louis.

His dick twitches abruptly against his towel and gives him away. Harry moves to the side of their bed as his gaze drops to Louis’s arm moving, and he crawls onto the covers to see that Louis’s hand is buried inside his knickers and he’s stroking himself slowly.

“First, you take my bag, then you begin without me,” Harry says.

He tuts lightly as he sits properly on his bum, shaking his head with it as he watches Louis.

Louis has a breathy quality to his voice. “Your bag’s just fine.”

“Where is it?”

“I—”

“No, don’t stop,” he says when Louis begins to remove his hand.

Louis pauses, eyes cutting to him.

“You started without me, so, you can finish without me,” Harry continues. “I’ll just sit here and watch you make a mess of yourself.”

He leans back onto his right arm with a crooked smirk pulling the right corner of his mouth up.

Louis’s eyes narrow just the slightest in an attempted glare, but he blinks and tilts his head down to look at himself. He wraps his fingers around himself again and drags his hand up and down his cock in the same rhythm as before, and Harry watches him work himself into a delicate state, breathy moans, whimpers, and stuttered breathing coming out in verses and choruses. Each one trickles down Harry’s spine and into his groin, creating a second heartbeat at the slit of his dick and making it throb.

He digs his fingers into the duvet to keep from touching himself.

He’s gotten good at restraining himself over the years for the sole purpose of properly maintaining the upperhand with Louis for exact situations like this when Harry feels he needs to have some kind of punishment, but, God, nothing would please him more than to untie this towel and touch himself whilst watching Louis making himself come.

Precome spurts from Louis’s tip, following a moan, and Harry sucks on his bottom lip.

“Look at me, baby.”

Louis looks up, deeply pigmented mouth parted and eyes so glassy they resemble crystals in the moonlight. He has a flush high on his cheekbones that’s alluring Harry’s fingers into brushing them kindly.

“You like this, don’t you?” Harry accuses, warm and suggestive tone dripping life into his words like melting sugar in a cuppa. This time, he does stretch his hand out to touch Louis’s very warm cheek and lets his index and middle fingers drop to his wet lips. “You make it so hard for me to control myself. I didn’t _want_ to have to do this, but you always push the limits, and I can’t let you get away with it. But I know that’s why you do what you do, love.”

He pushes his fingers into Louis’s mouth without warning, and Louis’s lips close around them with a pleased hum.

“Now”—his voice is softer—“I want you to come while you suck on my fingers.”

Louis does as he’s told.

His cheeks become hollow as he sucks and brushes his tongue against Harry’s fingers, and the speed of his hand increases by each second — to the point where he starts getting sloppy because he’s so close to the edge and his eyes are betraying how desperately he needs it. Harry decides to be merciful and help him by using his free hand to play with his nipples, pinching and rolling one between the pads of his fingers.

Louis squeezes his eyes shut, moaning around his fingers, and spills over his fist and all inside his knickers, making a right mess of himself.

“You did _fantastique_ , baby,” Harry softly tells him as he reaches over to brush back short strands.

Louis’s eyes flutter at his touch.

Taking his hand out of his knickers and removing his lips from Harry’s fingers, he says, “You really know how to make a man want it.”

Harry smiles at Louis’s tired and humourous tone.

“Lie on your back for me,” he instructs him kindly.

Louis gets in the position, laying his hands atop his stomach and releasing a content breath. Harry gets to his knees, and he crawls over to situate himself between Louis’s legs, who’s bent and spread them apart.

He’s a vision laying beneath Harry in sticky lingerie, edges of his body carved from the finest hands and hooded, blue eyes that are staring right back at him without wavering. His legs and thighs are hairless, skin looking as smooth and flawless as a male model’s from a photoshopped spread, and Harry can’t help walking his first two fingers up along the top of his knee and down his thigh then laying them flat to caress it.

“Hey,” Louis rasps softly, suddenly.

“Hm?” Harry hums as he leans forward to kiss his way down Louis’s warm inner thigh.

“Remove your towel.”

Harry sets a hand over Louis’s clothed cock and starts rubbing him through it, eliciting a soft whine from him.

Smiling against Louis’s thigh, he asks, “Why, baby? Be polite.”

“Because I really wanna see your dick,” Louis answers. “Remove it, _please_.”

Harry’s very slow about the reveal, which drives Louis to impatiently knock his knee into his side to get him to knock it off. He laughs about it, but stops messing around to undo the tucked in bit and drops the towel to the floor behind him.

Air that drifts against him feels colder, and it makes him twitch.

Louis stares at Harry’s cock with a gaze that slowly increases with living desire and attentiveness, and Harry watches him lick his bottom lip.

Harry reaches down to stroke himself with a rough grip, groaning very low in the back of his throat at the warm, sensitive feeling that rubs against his nerves and boils at the pit of his stomach. He’s red at the head from denying himself the action of touching for so long, the colour fading and blending into the pale skin the further down it goes; he feels his underside vein throbbing, and he twists his wrist and separates his fingers from his thumb to drag them along the vein as he strokes.

He holds himself back by sucking in his bottom lip and giving a small groan.

Louis tilts his head back, and he almost pleads, “Quit being a tease already and just fuck me. Wasn’t going to beg, but I will if that’s what gets you inside me. Plus, the whole purpose of me wearing this was to fucking get _back at you_ for yesterday and tease _you_.”

Harry pauses.

Letting go of himself, he quirks an eyebrows and leans down, pressing his hands into the mattress beside Louis’s head to loom over him.

“Is that so, _ch_ _éri_?”

Louis cuts his gaze up to meet his, chin stuck out defiantly. “All’s fair in sex and war.”

A slow smile stretches across Harry’s mouth.

“Oh, no, _no_ , darling,” he coos in an oddly smug and superior tone, bringing his right hand up to drag his index finger along Louis’s jawline and bottom lip. “That’s only true if _I_ do something. You’ve been a very bad boy — not letting me touch you until I shower, starting without me, being impatient with how I treat you — and now you’re saying this was revenge? Truthfully, I don’t know if you deserve my cock or not.”

“Please,” Louis begs suddenly, eyes grown softer and glossier, genuine desperation reflecting in them and in his voice, “I’ve wanted it for so long — I’m sorry, I take it all _back_ —”

“Sh, baby,” Harry soothes him, dragging his hand to comb through his fringe. “It’s okay, I’ll give it to you, don’t you worry.”

He tries so hard sometimes to be firm and unyielding with Louis because Louis gives him the same attitude and acts so disobedient, but, the truth is, he’s just far too soft at the core for Louis; whenever his façade cracks and he starts pleading with Harry to take him, Harry gives in to him without a moment’s notice because he can’t stand to see any resemblance of distraught on his face.

It’ll never fucking change.

A year apart hasn’t changed it, and five years won’t. And neither will ten.

Louis runs his hands from up Harry’s collarbones to into his wet hair, entangling his fingers tightly and yanking him down to kiss him with the same desperation from Louis’s eyes that seep into his wet lips.

It’s winter in Paris; it’s cold fingers that crawl up Harry’s spine when he leaves the balcony doors cracked to let air in; it’s the Eiffel Tower as it stands strong and resilient against the harsh snowfall and white, cloudless sky that covers the blurry city. Those snowflakes land peacefully on the edge of Harry’s tongue, melting sharply into his taste buds, as he feels out Louis’s tongue and the blizzard of his mouth.

It’s cold, but it’s synonymous with the haziness of a polaroid picture and the nostalgic yellows it bleeds with a winter chill cooling it.

In this, there’s only heartbreak in hindsight; in the fading yellow.

Harry parts from the kiss.

He pulls up and away and brushes his fingers through Louis’s hair again. “Where’s the lubricant, baby?” he asks.

“To my right,” Louis says, eyes briefly cutting up to the side.

Harry’s eyes search for a moment, finding the small bottle belatedly and close by Louis. He wasn’t even aware it was here. Grabbing it, he looks back down at him, quirks a brow. “I see you’re prepared,” he notes.

“Knew once I had you on me I wouldn’t want you to leave to get it,” Louis confesses, looking up at him through his long lashes.

Harry doesn’t say a word. He just blinks and swallows whatever could’ve been.

He snicks the cap open, and applies a very generous amount to his fingers, then lays the bottle down where he found it. He sits back on his legs and reaches forward to pull the thong from deep between his cheeks where it covers Louis’s hole, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth when he sees how pretty and pink it is; the exact way it’d been yesterday. It has more colour to it right now, but that makes Harry’s adoration for it grow.

In the hand he has the thong, he pulls one warm, thick cheek further away to better expose the hole, and nudges the tip of his index in.

Harry’s slow with it.

He takes his time with opening Louis, having him adjust to one finger, then pushing in a second one, and then taking it out a moment later to continue fingering him with only one. He alters between that until he thinks Louis’s walls have loosened and keeps his middle finger inside.

Louis doesn’t make a sound, but Harry sees him moving his hands a lot and gripping the sheets between his fingers. 

“Where d’you have a condom?” Harry asks after another two minutes.

“I don’t have one,” Louis replies breathlessly.

Harry slows his fingers, and looks to Louis sharply. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. Oops.”

His words aren’t remorseful whatsoever, and Harry can only blink at him.

“Did you _want_ to do it bare?” he finally asks.

“Did _you_?” Louis counters.

“Louis.”

“Actually, I wanted you to take me from behind and give it to me rough, but, yes,” Louis corrects with a lighthearted undertone and features coming together in the same way. His face settles into something more serious when Harry takes too long to speak, and his voice becomes a little softer. “I have a condom — I was just teasin’ you to be difficult.”

Harry shakes his head, once.

“No,” he finally says, “it’s fine. As long as you want it, I don’t have qualms.”

He was just caught off guard at first because he doesn’t think they’ve ever done it bare, and it wasn’t something he’d thought Louis would do.

Louis gives him a careful look.

“You have to want it, too, you know,” he says.

“I told you I have no qualms,” Harry repeats with absolution.

Louis’s quick to shift his demeanour back to what he was before.

“Get to it, then,” he says — almost _challenges_ — shrugging flippantly.

Harry pumps his fingers in Louis with a newfound direction; and a rough angle rips a raw whine straight from his throat. After hearing it, he finds Louis’s other weak spots and uses him the way he knows Louis likes to pull it out of him again and again. And each one he earns, he feels it burn right into his chest cavity and touch the tips of his cheekbones. By the time Harry thinks he’s ready, Louis’s gripping and pulling on the sheets with little care, making high pitched moans.

Taking his fingers out, Harry retrieves the lube, and he rubs it all over his dick, stroking himself, too, in the process to relieve some pressure on the ache he’s been ignoring for so long. His eyes flutter, and he moves forward to press himself to as close to Louis as can.

“You wanna wear this while I fuck you?” Harry asks, his other hand still holding the thong material to the side. “Or would that be uncomfortable?”

“Go for it,” Louis breathes out.

He’s looking up at Harry with his enlarged pupils taking most of the blue out of his eyes, lips bitten into a deeper pink, top back of his hair gone astray and messy from moving so much; the flush coating his cheeks like liquid blush makes it come together in one enchanting, messy dream.

Harry guides his tip in with a firm grip.

A soft inhale with sharp edges crawls its way right into Louis’s mouth the moment his tip enters.

“Can you hold this for me, please, so, that it doesn’t interfere?” he says to Louis, tugging on his thong for emphasis. “It would be incredibly difficult for me to do this if I hold it.”

“Yeah,” Louis agrees far too easily.

He reaches down without any effort and takes it from his hold, and Harry gives him a soft smile as he continues to push in. It’s a smooth slide; it’s warm, and encompassing, and he fits right inside without any barriers, and pauses when he’s all the way so as to settle. It’s all too familiar, and when he moves his hips back to push in deep again, he’s moving the memory cuts that give him a glimpse of all the times he’s had Louis on this bed and in this same position to the forefront of his brain; in the same city capital that offers them nothing but grey.

Louis’s quiet, at first, as he always is: constant switching from between disciplined stillness and reckless neediness — then when Harry works into a rhythm not too slow and not too fast, he begins to fidget and pull his eyebrows together.

Harry teases his pacing by slowing his hips and not letting any other part of him make contact with Louis.

It only makes Louis fidget that much more.

He lets the sheets crumple between the graceful movements of his fingers as Harry rolls his hips into him with slow, deep drags that can be felt with every inch, and he goes as far to move himself down, which only disrupts Harry’s movements and almost causes his dick to slip out of him.

“Sweetheart, you can’t do that,” he tells Louis sweetly.

He’s leaning down and has a hand against Louis’s throat, thumb and forefinger pressed to his pulse points.

Louis pouts up at him, and his head leans a little further back to bare more. “You were being mean. I can do whatever I want.”

An internal pause stills the insides of Harry as he carefully studies Louis’s face. Nothing about his behaviour is unusual, but he’s acting up more tonight than Harry’s ever seen him. After he’s ordered Louis around and made clear he can’t just do whatever, he’ll normally take whatever Harry’s giving him, becoming so obedient and willing. But this, however, isn’t the same; he’s trying to push the limits past what happens, and Harry’s left trying to figure it out.

“No, I wasn’t,” Harry kindly disagrees. “You have to stay still for me if you want my cock, you know that.”

Louis meets his eye and stares for many moments.

Then, taking a slightly unexpected turn, he pushes himself further down using his legs and takes all of Harry’s cock.

He moans in the same moment Harry’s eyes flutter at the deep hit his dick takes. It’s like he’s being swallowed; he lies inside a bed entrapped in warmth and the humidity of an Amazon rain forest, and he feels himself being lulled into going deeper, crawling further along the leaves he’s high upon.

“Come on,” Louis taunts, raspy and seductive all at once, placing his free hand atop Harry’s hand that’s still against his throat and presses Harry’s grip down to create pressure. “Do it. Take me, just like this.”

Harry falls off the murumuru tree.

He pulls his hips back and roughly thrusts in, making Louis gasp.

He copies it thrust after thrust to build, drawing out similar gasps and whines from Louis, then softens the blows by working them into a steady rhythm. Wet and dry skin colliding and crashing and burning fill the room with a loudness that’s too pointed and direct, too real and too abrupt; and pleasure that rolls through the aches of the body come up and bubble in their throats, pouring out into a bowl of red water.

Harry feels the red consume the edges of his intestines, pull him further into Louis and into himself.

Louis moans breathlessly, digging his nails into the back of Harry’s hand with each thrust, dragging red and white lines across the straining tendons in his knuckles, darkening the water. It’s a lot more work put into fucking him while holding himself up with mostly one arm as Louis clings to the other, but it’s working in his favour.

“Baby,” Harry murmurs, panting, “let go, okay? You can do it.”

Louis whines in response.

He’s so stiff in his knickers that it looks like it hurts, and Harry changes his angle to drive more fiercely into Louis’s prostate.

“Oh, my God,” Louis whimpers, arching off the bed some.

They’re both so close, Harry feels it in the way Louis keeps clenching around his dick in a near constant and the red water simmering at the edges of his nerves.

Then it explodes: Louis’s coming inside his knickers once again, body tensed and chin tilted up to the ceiling. His mouth has fallen open on a silent sound, with eyes that are only halfway closed. And he has a grip so tight around Harry’s dick that it sends Harry off the edge when he tries to move inward again, coming inside Louis bare and with a feeling so foreign yet oddly freeing in a tamed sensibility.

He gently bends the elbow of the arm holding him up and collapses in a heat of soft serenity that has the essence of his spirit in a reality that’s in between where they are right now.

Harry lays his head against Louis’s chest.

It breathes up; up, up, up — breathes in; slow but full takes; and he’s calmly moving with it like the motions of sea that rock a boat.

Eventually, he pulls out, and Louis grimaces.

“What?” Harry wonders.

“Nothing,” Louis replies, still looking off to the side. “I can just feel it oozing out of me. Don’t know if I like that or not.”

“Well, if you’ve got to think about it, then you probably don’t.”

He goes to push his come back in, but he pauses at the sound of Louis’s voice.

“Don’t do it, or you’ll lose that finger.”

Harry moves to lay down beside Louis, on his left side, and stares at Louis’s flushed cheeks, strands of his soft, silky and short brown hair that are out of place, blue eyes coming into full focus as his pupils return to their normal size, and it all rushes to him in one vial; the tenderness soaking into his fingertips gently guide them to grip edges of Louis that’ll pull him close — until his head is resting right up against Harry’s chest, still breathing in evenly, silently, and bringing a curled hand with him to rest under Harry’s pec.

It’s so silent and still for so long.

“Are you ever going to tell me why you’re mad?” Harry softly asks, eyebrows narrowed slightly. His voice breaks a wall in the air surrounding them, and he hides some of his fingers in Louis’s hair to repair it.

There’s a weighted pause.

“No,” Louis says, finally, as quiet as Harry. “You still owe me those tiny croissants you promised. And a fruit basket.”

Harry’s mouth falls open on soundless words.

But there’s nothing for him to say.

 

 

 

The first thing Harry does is buy croissants and a fruit basket.

It’s stopped snowing for the hour, but the morning sun still hides behind a grey sky that has the outlines of individual clouds erased, presenting itself as one, dreary drape; but the wind is still vicious. He left Louis in bed after covering him in multiple duvets he’d asked the staff for, but not before having to pry him off of his back to even get up.

As soon as he opens the door to their suite, he finds Louis laying awake, face down on the bed with his head towards the closed balcony doors.

“Hey,” Harry greets him with quietly.

It goes unacknowledged as he makes his way over to put himself between what Louis is staring at. He looks very calm, face void of any emotion, and Harry sets the box of mini croissants and small fruit basket on the edge in front of himself.

Louis blinks, looking up to meet his gaze. “Where were yo—”

He pauses mid-sentence when his eyes drop to what’s before him.

“Surprise,” Harry says far too casually. “Went and got these for you like promised.”

Louis stares for many seconds, then lifts himself onto his elbows. Stretching an arm out, he drags the box and basket closer, and turns himself around to sit up, duvets falling to his lap and uncovering his bare torso. He removes the white top of the box to peek inside for a brief second before covering it again and tilts his head back to look at Harry. Then — Louis leans forward, hands coming up to pull on the bottom of the lapels of Harry’s coat, and tugs him down to kiss him.

It’s sweet in its dryness; it’s far from tender, because the press of his lips on his own is heavy and real with its weight, covering every small inch that makes up the hyperactive nerves that is his mouth.

Louis moves his hands up to cup both sides of Harry’s face.

With a sudden pressure he puts into the kiss, he pulls back, looking Harry in the eye. “Thank you,” he murmurs, tiniest of smiles touching the centre of his mouth.

A warm cloth wraps around Harry’s heart.

“No problem,” he says.

He returns the smile Louis gives him in equal.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress to Louis’s right, Harry watches him take the lid off of the box again and pick up a mini croissant. He parts his lips when he brings it up, but he pauses, eyes cutting to Harry. He stretches his arm out to present it to him instead.

“Want it?” he offers, one brow slightly arched.

Harry gives it a brief look before reaching forward and plucking his own out, gripping the end and wiggling it a little in response, and takes a bite.

Louis shakes his head with a smile and opens the fruit basket.

 

 

Harry’s waiting.

Right now, it’s silent in their room aside from the French programme on television. Earlier, they’d been talking with no sense of direction; Harry was trying to repeat all of the words and attempt to translate best he could with his limited French knowledge, whilst Louis sat at the opposite end of the settee and nibbled on fruit he’d ordered, a small but humoured smile lifting life into his face.

He’s waiting for a proper row to combust between them.

Harry’s actually been anticipating it for now three days, and it’s yet to occur. By now, it’s _happened_ ; and by now, it’s happened at least once a day.

The fighting is an ingrained part of what they are, and the fact it’s been lurking in the shallow waters, stalling for the sake of striking when it could be at its worst, has his nerves on high alert — mind reluctantly worried. He knows what Louis said. _Because I don’t want to do this anymore;_ _I refuse to fight with you after this_. And, perhaps, what he’d also meant was that it started right then and there: no fighting; no shattering vases; no risking further bad reputation they already have in the Shangri-La; because this was the last time he wanted to do _any_ part of this with Harry.

Perhaps.

But Harry will rest in the patches of growing grass, swallowed by the murky water, and prepare.

 

 

“I wanna dance with you,” Louis says suddenly, words slightly sloppy.

He’s halfway through Shangri-La’s finest wine, and a quarter of their finest champagne, and he’s become very whole in expressing the tiniest bits of his personality and freely throwing his head back when any laughter crawls up into his throat and out of his mouth. Harry’s only had a full glass of each, and he’s just fine.

He scoffs lightly at Louis, shaking his head an inch. “No, you don’t,” he says. “You don’t like dancing.”

“Sure, I do,” Louis protests with a determined slur.

Harry watches him get up from the settee and onto his feet unsteadily with both eyebrows high as they can go, expressing his dull, set incredulity. Louis leans down to take a slice of yellow fruit, taking a bite out of it as he begins to spin and move his hips dangerously close to the sofa; and Harry remains leaning forward in a single chair near the opposite end, eyes fixed on the movements of his body.

“No, you don’t,” he repeats himself belatedly, turning his head away to put his unlit fag in between his lips.

The end sparks when the lighter works this time.

“Who’s the woman you sing about?”

Louis’s still dancing with fruit in his hand, spinning in calm, uneven circles to imaginary music, when Harry’s gaze cuts to him at the sudden questioning that doesn’t relate to his persistent desire to dance with him.

Harry takes the fag out of his mouth. “There is no woman,” he answers.

“So, she’s imaginary?” Louis asks.

“Yeah,” he says, after a slight hesitance. She’s here in this room; she’s the dust particles that can’t be seen with the naked eye; the life of the green flowers in the vase placed on a coffee table at the other side of the room near the bed and in front of the other settee. She’s the wine and champagne in Louis — a her that isn’t a she at all. “Neither of us know her — except for the quiet places in my mind.”

Popping the small bit of fruit left in his mouth, Louis stops spinning to face Harry.

“I’d like to know you in the ways she does,” he says in a quiet voice, after a lull, after swallowing.

He’s staring directly at Harry with eyes that speak a depth of something Harry isn’t sure what holds. But the soft blueberry colour with its gloss coating scratches at his veins around his neck and mouth and chest.

It makes him itch to look anywhere but in return.

Harry drops his eyes to the fag in between his fingers.

After stubbing it out in a thrapper set next to him on a high and skinny glass accent table, he uses his upper body strength to push himself up and out of the chair. He walks over to stand in front of Louis, and stops when there’s half a foot of distance between their feet. And though he moves at a speed so calm and relaxed, his chest weighs heavy with a contradiction.

Louis’s still looking up at him in the same way; unrelenting.

“I told you there is no one,” Harry says, going against everything his ribs are telling him by looking him in the eye.

“I know.”

“You know me best out of anybody.”

“I know,” Louis repeats.

“And you’re drunk,” he adds. He glances at the fruit basket on the settee. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Have some more fruit.”

This time, Louis pulls his gaze from him, but he doesn’t move away.

“I may be drunk,” he begins softly, “but I _am_ aware of everything.”

Harry ignores him and steps away to retrieve a piece of fruit for himself from the basket, then moves to grab the thrapper and make his way to the bathroom to throw the ashes in the rubbish. As soon as he returns, he notices Louis’s back to twirling, but with the addition of quiet music playing from his phone. He’s got his glass of wine in his hand, and he’s chewing on a grape from a small vine of them he has in his other.

Harry sits back down in his chair, leans against it with his legs spread wide, and just watches him.

Louis stops after a while, though.

He comes walking over to Harry with his wine and grapes, forcefully closes Harry’s legs, and sits right in his lap with his own legs hanging off the sides of Harry’s thighs. And Harry just looks at him with one eyebrow arched, right elbow resting on the arm with his index finger digging into his cheek and chin leaning against his knuckles.

“Take me dancing,” Louis demands.

Harry chooses to indulge him this time; it’s inevitable.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks.

Louis squints slightly as he tilts his head and purses his lips in contemplation. “I don’t want to go anywhere outside the hotel,” he finally answers. “Let’s do it in the hallway.”

“I really don’t want the neighbours to tattle,” Harry says. “The staff only _sort of_ tolerate us here nowadays.”

“You’re right,” Louis agrees with a nod.

Harry blinks as a thought comes to mind, and in a moment he’s gripping Louis’s waist to lift him off of himself to stand.

Louis opens his mouth, but Harry’s faster.

“I know where we can.”

 

 

“Excuse me?”

Laetitia, the receptionist, is staring at Harry like she’s not sure she’s heard him correctly.

“I know that it is a _lot_ to ask,” he continues, “but I’m willing to give anything if we could just use the lobby and at least half of the stairs, if not all of it. Money is no object.”

There’s a long pause.

“Let me talk to my manager first,” she says, finally, before disappearing into the back.

Harry turns around.

Louis’s staring at him, standing there in bare feet and loose jeans with the ends rolled up and Harry’s Britney Spears t-shirt. Harry wanted him to put on shoes, fearful he’d hurt himself, and he almost had when coming down the stairs. But he had a hand on Louis, and was helping to guide him in case, and the only thing that happened was him falling into Harry’s arms, laughing like it was nothing.

“They’re not going to let us,” Louis tells him with a soft, doubtful expression.

“They will,” Harry counters.

After a few minutes, Laetitia comes back with her manager.

Harry spends a fair amount of time bargaining; he has to sort out talk his way out of some things, because though the manager’s not entirely unwilling to let them occupy the areas they want, he _is_ reluctant because of his concern for Harry and Louis’s past record — and Harry doesn’t blame him whatsoever.

They do have a history of breaking things, and getting countless complaints from other people in the same level for all the destruction they cause. They were even once faced with a ban threat.

But they take responsibility, pay and make up, which is how they’re still allowed in.

“All right,” the manager tells him.

He takes Harry’s cash offer and agrees to let them use the section they want for no more than two hours, of which Harry had told him he only wanted, and informs the areas will be blocked off and et cetera. And after Harry thanks him and the receptionist profusely, he turns to Louis with a huge smile on his face, arms spread wide.

Louis’s grinning back at him.

“And what did I tell you?” he says. “I _told you_.”

“Only because your few thousand pound offer helped your case,” Louis retorts, mocking Harry by spreading his arms out the same way, “but you did tell me, yes.”

Harry takes him by the cheeks of his face and kisses him.

His lips are a cool silk mixture of wine and champagne, and Harry feels like he could get drunk just by kissing him alone, which earns him a badly put together look from Louis — due to his alcohol induced state — when he pulls back and tells him as much. But the attitude goes as quickly as it had come when they’re told it’s all clear.

Louis’s already dancing before any even music even begins.

They’ve made their way over to stairs section, and Harry’s looking through his phone for something to put on, so, he doesn’t notice Louis high up on the steps twirling around. But he does when he turns his head to ask a question.

“Louis, you’re going to hurt yourself,” he warns.

“No, I won’t,” Louis sings back to him.

“Okay, then don’t come crying to me if you do.”

Louis giggles. “I already came crying to you earlier, so, quit being a tosser and play something already.”

Harry didn’t need a reminder of the way Louis cried and came in his pants without touching himself earlier when Harry fucked his mouth. And Louis certainly didn’t need to be saying it so loud out in the open where anybody could overhear; but at this point, he’s not sure if it matters anymore; what they do is probably not a secret amongst the staff.

Harry shakes his head. “Who do you want?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis replies. “As long as there are no sad songs. That kills the mood.”

Harry stops scrolling and picks a perfectly random artist he’s given as an option, and takes out a small speaker that’s in his back pocket to hook up to. He presses play on one of Rod Stewart’s biggest hits and turns the volume up, and turns his attention to Louis in time to see his expression light up.

“I love this song,” he calls from far away.

His voice carries easily through the room, and it gets a smile out of Harry.

“I know,” he replies, and then stretches his arm out, palm up in invitation.

Though Louis comes carefully down the stairs, he still stumbles a little, and it’s how he ends up in Harry’s arms. But he’s laughing and clinging onto Harry with reckless care; like he trusts Harry to not let himself get hurt.

Louis sings very off-key without a worry in his head, and has Harry twirl him so much Harry’s genuinely surprised he hasn’t gotten sick yet with all the spinning he’s done tonight. Sober, Louis is a very awkward dancer with no rhythm in his feet, and Harry knows that’s partially why he doesn’t like dancing; but, drunk, he may still be awkward, but he uses every part of himself: legs, shoulders, hips, feet — which he never does sober.

He’s not stiff, either, but he’s clumsy.

Harry presses the back of Louis to his front at the end of a spin, wrapping his arms around him as they move back and forth, when Louis asks, “Do you think I should give Marc Anthony a call?”

“Uh,” Harry stammers, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I want to learn salsa,” Louis continues, “and I think I could be really good at it.”

He thinks Sober Louis would never.

“You know what,” Harry says, “I think you should wait until morning to think it through.

Louis nods.

“You’re probably right.”

He turns around in Harry’s arms, and they continue dancing. The floor is polished, clean, and has their feet gliding far too easily; and Louis manages to convince Harry to take off his shoes to dance in his socks. Harry only does it for the smile on Louis’s face and the loud, drunken cheer he gives Harry that echoes throughout the entire floor — and Harry laughs equals parts at him and the looks and thoughts he knows the staff are giving and having about them.

Harry does, however, have to keep Louis away from around the corner where there’s a vanity and two lamps sat atop it and the tall, beautiful light — with a beautifully carved woman as the stand — next to the curve of the stairs, so, that he doesn’t accidentally bump into them.

It would be absolute _hell_ to repay that one. Even if it does seem heavy and sturdy.

It’s undeniably some of the best two hours of his life.

 

 

 

Harry turns onto his left side, peeking his bleary eyes open to look for Louis. He’s a little over a foot away from Harry, laying on his stomach with his hair all over the place and head tucked down on the mattress instead of the pillows above him, and his arms are bent under himself in one of the curled and messy ways he finds himself in during his slumber.

A small, fragile smile touches the corners of Harry’s mouth as he reaches out and gently pulls Louis against his naked chest — which disturbs Louis and wakes him — and presses a long, careful kiss to the top of Louis’s head.

“Happy birthday,” he murmurs hoarsely.

He tilts his head down to press a kiss around Louis’s small ear, and another behind it.

“Mm,” Louis hums. “What have I told you about waking me up?”

“To not do it.”

“And yet,” Louis lilts, sounding half asleep.

Laying there in the still, soundless silence, Harry feels Louis drift back into sleep with each breath he takes and the way it changes the atmosphere that clings to the aura of each other; and Louis takes Harry with him, pulling him in and under and resurfacing every now and then. The duvets that prison them are possibly the softest he’s ever slept in, and it makes it exceptionally harder to get out of bed.

But they do.

Harry woke Louis completely with kisses all over his torso until he was squirming and having to shove him off, and now he’s in the bathroom after placing a special breakfast order to the kitchen to take a shower.

After emerging clean and dressed, he finds Louis sat upright in bed in the centre looking so disgruntled, tired and hair even more a wreck, and it makes Harry smile. He walks over to place a sloppy kiss to Louis’s cheek, and Louis’s features scrunch together into neither unpleasantry nor annoyance. Fifteen minutes later, a knock disrupts them, and Harry jumps up right away to get it.

Louis perks up when Harry pulls the trolley in.

It’s nothing luxurious; it’s Louis’ usual order of waffles — with an overeasy egg on top this time — and a bowl of fruit. But Harry’s sure what makes him interested are the two tall candles stuffed in his fruit bowl.

He has the personnel light them before thanking them and pulling the trolley closer when they leave.

“Are you serious?” Louis says as he gets up, fixing his hair.

“Very.”

He doesn’t look surprised, but he’s staring at the sparklers with a soft affection in his eyes as they shoot high into the air and crackle, making noise as they celebrate. The sparks that burst in a short flame of fire leave in a shape oddly close to a star, and ten seconds later they abruptly stop.

Louis looks up with a short puff of laughter and smile, combing his hair back.

“Wow,” he breathes gently.

“Happy birthday,” Harry warbles, “ _again_. That’s all I could do. Sorry; it’s not much.”

Louis shakes his head.

“No,” he disagrees, looking Harry in the eye with something less of what he’d had staring at the sparks and more of a lachrymose happiness Harry doesn’t understand, “it’s fine. I love it. . . . Thank you.”

Harry chuckles, looking away as he feels a ripple of goosebumps strike his skin.

His voice is undeniably soft. “It’s no problem.”

As soon as he takes the sparklers out of the bowl, he tells Louis to get back in bed, so, that they can eat their breakfast in bed. He gives Louis his first, and then joins him, a little grateful he chose to wear joggers instead of trousers like he’d debated; and they talk; talk unrushed and like the harsh winter is their sun, with long pauses between conversation. Then when they’re done, Harry takes all of their dishes and sets them back on the trolley.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Louis says as he passes by Harry with a pat to his back.

“Okay,” Harry murmurs without looking.

He takes care of the food trolley and cleans up their alcohol fiasco from last night while Louis’s washing himself, and when Harry knows he’s about to finish, he enters the bathroom to brush his teeth.

When the water shuts off a minute later, Harry looks up in the mirror to see Louis step out and wrap a towel around his waist, using another to pat and ring out the excess water in his hair before draping it across his shoulders. He runs a hand through it, a soft, content look crossing his face briefly.

Harry blinks and tears his gaze away.

“My head feels so much better now,” Louis comments.

He bends down to spit toothpaste into the sink, and asks, “Did you have a headache?”

“No,” Louis answers. “I just felt like I was in a very off and distant state of mind. Kind of disoriented.”

Harry hums. “Well, I’m glad.”

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Louis leaves.

Louis’s bent over his overnight bag when Harry exits and makes his way over. He sits down next to it on the bench at the end of the bed, and leans backs on the bed with his arms as he crosses his right leg over the other, watching Louis rifle through it. He looks to be organising all of his messy clothing articles with all the right pieces to give an illusion of put togetherness, then stops when his phone vibrates next to him.

“What are you doing?” Harry asks, curious, as Louis taps away at a response.

All he receives is silence.

He’s contemplating asking again when Louis finally glances at him as he stuffs his phone in his pocket, and says, “I’ve decided not to go with the salsa lessons.”

Harry smiles.

“Knew you wouldn’t,” he chuckles. Then, after a long stretch of silence, in a quieter tone: “You didn’t answer my question, though. What are you doing?”

He sees hesitation cloud Louis’s eyes as he still avoids looking Harry’s way and fixing his belongings, and something from it has a raw thing crawling up Harry’s lungs and rubbing the wrong way.

“I’m packing,” Louis answers, and swallows. He’s stopped moving his hands. “I have a train to get to.”

Harry blinks. “What?”

“I promised my family I’d be back to spend my birthday and Christmas with them.”

It feels like Harry should’ve seen this coming; in all fairness, he did — in some sense of the knowledge. And he feels like it has no right to be so sudden because of that.

“So, you’re just leaving?” Harry asks, useless against the way his voice turns against him, exposes him for the hard undertone that sets in, the incredulity that makes him sound childish whenever it comes out, and uncrossing his legs and pushing himself from the bed to lean forward. “You didn’t even tell me.”

Louis licks his lips, a small poke of the tongue, as he briefly squeezes his eyes shut. “Look — I said I didn’t want to fight.”

“We’re not _fighting_ , Louis — it’s just—”

“What?” Louis prompts softly, looking over now.

Harry searches his eyes that reflect a shine. “It’s just that since the moment you walked in,” he begins with a little composure, “I feel like I’ve been trying to figure out if I’ve done something wrong. It’s just that you won’t talk to me when I ask, and I really don’t know what to do.”

Louis’s looked away, and he’s shaking his head. “I didn’t want to be the selfish one,” he murmurs.

“How could you _ever_ be selfish—”

“What are we doing, Harry?”

Harry falls silent, mouth closing.

Louis’s squatting, and he’s looking at Harry with a tired intensity that unnerves him and nudges at the raw creature gripping the side of his lungs. His question is direct and unwavering; unmistakable. But Harry chooses to look away.

“We’re here to spend time together,” Harry says eventually.

He knows it’s not the correct answer, and he feels the air become heavier with the weight of it — of its palpability wiping his lie clean.

He knows Louis feels it, too.

“I mean,” begins Louis quietly, looking away, “really. Think about it. What are we doing to each other?”

“Well, I fuck you,” Harry answers after a brief pause, tone dry. “On occasion, you ride my face.”

It doesn’t provoke the smile he was hoping it’d pull out of Louis. Instead, he looks at Harry with deeper lines under his eyes and between his furrowed eyebrows that express an unhappiness that wasn’t as present as before. But it reminds him of the lachrymose emotion that filled his eyes when the sparklers in his fruit had went out, and Harry now thinks he understands what that meant.

He has to stop himself from apologising.

“But isn’t that the problem?” Louis goes on saying, question rhetorical.

He drops his gaze to Louis’ bag next to him, blinking at the clothes he sees and every version of Louis that’d worn them in the back of his mind. Inhaling silently, Harry feels his throat muscles become painfully taut.

He looks up and says, “You were just going to leave and not return this time . . . weren’t you?”

“I don’t wanna do this anymore, no,” Louis answers, with a slight hesitancy.

Harry swallows, nodding as he presses his lips together. Something about that makes it slightly hard to breathe for a moment.

“Did you plan on ignoring my calls?” he can’t help but ask.

“Not if you called to say hello,” Louis replies truthfully, face not having changed one bit since Harry’s dry remarks — or maybe it’s gotten a little worse; he looks a little more worn. “Or to ask me how I am.”

He wouldn’t have done that.

Louis knows that.

He hasn’t done that in a couple of years, and he knows he definitely wouldn’t have started it once Louis left, because this is where it ends: this is the beginning of the end; the inevitable that had shadowed their darkness from when they first started this as a mutual agreement that was supposed to be a one-time thing before they threw all caution to the wind; the promises of keeping an active friendship outside of whatever hell this was and pretending this didn’t ruin them.

All of the promises would’ve just been broken, as they tend to be.

And this weirdly hurts more than he ever thought it would. But maybe that’s why he’s avoided ever thinking of it, because it shouldn’t hurt in the first place and he should be okay with it. He’s a damned fool.

Especially because Louis has never been his.

“Right,” Harry says.

He stands and takes several steps back to put distance between each other, and Louis seems to react to him moving away, eyes lowering and body shifting like he’s going to stand, too, but then changes his mind and opens his mouth.

“Right,” Harry continues, intentionally cutting Louis off, “um, so — we’ll go back to being friends without . . . all of the extra stuff?”

Louis stands then, face twisting shyly as he crosses his arms in a self-conscious manner. “Are we even friends?” he asks Harry in a near whisper, boldly looking him in the eye.

Harry blinks.

“Of course we are,” he answers. Why wouldn’t they be?

With a small, slow shrug, face still twisted shyly, Louis admits, “I feel like I barely know you anymore.”

Harry’s immediately on the defence. “ _What_ —”

“I’m sorry,” Louis rushes to say, taking two steps towards Harry, “but that’s how I feel. I mean, are you gonna stand there and say to my face that we haven’t just gone a year without speaking to one another? That the only communication we’ve had the past two and a half years _isn’t_ calling to meet up and then _fighting_ the entire time with just a civil comment here and there?”

Louis’s staring him down, challenging him with his wet, bright blue eyes to say just that; to argue against it.

But Harry can’t.

It’s the fucking truth.

“No,” he says quietly, swallowing loudly as he glances down.

Silence rings in the air.

“I feel like,” Louis begins, gaze moving all around before settling on Harry for brief moments at a time, “all the fucking around has ruined us. At the time, you needed whatever it was out of your system, and I needed something, too, and it was convenient because we knew each other best and we were comfortable. But then it _kept_ happening; and somewhere along the way, we stopped talking, and we stopped knowing who we were; and that lead us to silence, and fighting, and not listening to each other, and taking advantage of what we do that really only deepens the severity of it all with each time.”

The backs of Harry’s eyes begin to prick, vision clouding a tiny bit, as he tries to avoid looking at Louis for the sake of it worsening.

“Is this why you’re mad at me?” he asks quietly.

Louis comes closer to him, crowding his space and gently placing his hand against Harry’s cheek to direct his eyes to meet his softened ones, and Harry desperately tries to keep his emotions in check by controlling his breathing.

“I’m not mad at _you_ ,” Louis corrects his days’ old confession, soft emphasis on the word, and it makes Harry’s struggle harder. “I’m mad at _us_ — at what we’ve become. I’m mad at myself.”

“Why?” Harry searches his eyes.

“Because I don’t know how to say no to you,” he answers. “And I’m not even really mad, but I am, anyway, because if I’m not, then I’ll have to be sad, and . . . I don’t want to be.”

That reminds Harry of the first day; of when Louis confessed something so similar to it where they stood face to face in the bathroom, him soaking wet and Harry in drying sweat. “I don’t know what else to say,” Harry says, “other than I’m sorry for making you feel that way. Like you didn’t have another choice.”

Louis shakes his head, extracting his hand from Harry’s face.

“I’ve always had a choice,” he disagrees quietly, briefly looking away, “but I do things, like coming here, and not stopping this sooner, because I’m always torn by how I feel. It’s not your fault.”

Harry takes a step forward. “I—”

But Louis takes several steps back. “I have to go before I miss my train,” he says before turning around and zipping his bag.

He disappears so quickly Harry hardly has time to blink.

Harry stands there like the biggest fucking dickhead in the entire continent, unsure and confused and possibly suffering from whiplash, heart racing and his ribs closing in on him; they press against his lungs in a crushing, secure weight that makes him believe that the emptiness of the room is suffocating him, willing to kill him if he doesn’t follow after Louis. It’s such a claustrophobic feeling that it touches his self-preservation instinct and has his feet moving before he can consciously think about it.

As soon as he opens the door, he looks both ways and finds Louis walking far down the hallway at a pace that’s faster than his normal.

He barely closes the door before he’s jogging fast to catch up to him. Louis looks almost startled to see him when he comes up so abruptly by his side, matching his every step with the same speed, but Harry sees it quickly turn to exasperation.

“What can I do to make you stay?” he’s pleading now.

He sounds desperate, but if Louis’s going to fight to leave, then Harry’s going to fight to stay.

“I made myself perfectly clear, Harry,” Louis tells him with an unyielding tone. He’s not even looking at Harry as they reach the end of the hall and come to the stairs.

“I realise this—” Harry begins.

“Do you?” Louis’s sarcasm drips harshly.

“—but,” he continues, like that doesn’t bother him, “as much as I agree with you—that, yes, what we’ve been doing _has_ changed us—that, yes, it’s brought out our ugly sides—and, _yes_ , we’re tumultuous when we let it all get the best of us. . . I still don’t want you to leave.”

He confesses the last bit by grabbing the railing and hurriedly hopping onto the step below Louis, stepping in his way, so, that he has to stop.

Louis doesn’t look happy as he grips the railing, too, staring at him from above.

“That’s not a very convincing argument,” he comments.

“But it’s the truth,” Harry counters.

The unwavering gazes they hold with each other are tense and long.

“Give me another reason,” Louis demands finally.

Harry searches his mind in a fitful haze to try to string together something, because if anything’s gonna change Louis’s mind, it could be this; and he can’t mess this up. “I don’t—I mean,” he stumbles, a half exhausted, tired sigh loudly blowing through his nostrils and mouth, then settling with, “We didn’t fight,” in a firm statement.

There’s a pause.

“We didn’t fight?” Louis repeats blandly, stepping slowly down onto the stair Harry stands on.

“No,” he repeats as he turns to face Louis, briefly eyeing the bag strap he adjusts on his shoulder and hoping to God he’ll put it down, “we didn’t. Despite everything that says the opposite, we didn’t fight. We didn’t _just_ have sex, either; we talked in the middle of streets without backing up traffic more with our petty disagreements, because, whenever we start, you always put your fucking foot down and refuse to move, and we laughed — I made tea come up into your nose from that random joke I made yesterday in Odette, and it made me feel so good because I hadn’t made anybody laugh like that in so long. . . . Especially you. And you did the one thing with me you are _always_ so determined not to do: dance. And I took you to Versailles like you always wanted, and you were so happy, I couldn’t stop staring at you.

“. . . I saw the good in us — and maybe that’s chalked up to the fact we’ve been far apart for so long, and that I’ve missed you . . . _terribly_. Horrendously, utterly, completely—”

He stops himself, briefly, because he feels his eyes overheating.

“You can think whatever you want; and, perhaps, this was all in my head”—Harry raises a hand to it in a gesture, a joyless, pathetic smile stretching his lips—“all of the hours, and days, and years, minutes, of similar moments like those that obtain more significance than any words we’ve used to hurt each other with in time much smaller. But I don’t believe it’s us; it’s whatever the hell this is that’s made us this way.

“And, perhaps, the dried delusion in my head is whatever love I’ve held onto for you for so much of this. I didn’t mean for that to exist, and not certainly for you to know; but know that if you leave, nothing about any of this will change.”

Louis is staring at him without moving to say a word.

Harry notices the shine in his eyes steadily growing wetter, but the silence stretching between them is making him antsy.

“I’m sorry,” Harry adds on a brittle and shaky humourless chuckle, with a pathetic, weak smile as he shifts his stance, “that’s all I got, baby.”

He doesn’t have the heart to apologise for the pet name. He wouldn’t mean it.

“You mean that?” Louis whispers, eyes searching Harry’s.

“Well, I’ve never meant anything more, I don’t think,” he assures, “and I may have prideful issues, and vowed to myself I’d never say some of these things to you; and I feel really . . . uncomfortable being this vulnerable out in the open where passersby can hear my every word and see what I’ll see, and possibly feel the rejection you may give me and be a witness to this moment. But, yes, I mean it.”

Louis opens his mouth.

“And,” Harry continues, “I’d understand if you thought this couldn’t be fixed. But if you thought it could, I’d devote all my time and energy into making sure you feel like you made the right decision.”

Louis closes his mouth. 

During this stiff pause hanging off a wall between them, Harry thinks about clarifying that he’d apologise for speaking so much but he won’t for fear of accidentally belittling himself and lessening the worth of his promises. But Louis’s then pushing his thumb under his bag strap and removing it from his shoulder to set it on the stairs, and Harry’s racing heart begins to bruise his lungs again.

Louis swallows, licking his lips as he looks down and lifts his head, tears slow to come then dripping onto his cheeks with reckless abandon. He seems to refuse to meet Harry’s gaze, and it squeezes Harry’s heart. “I think I’ve missed my train now,” he murmurs in a broken voice, stubbornness dissolving as their eyes meet.

“I’ll get you another ticket,” Harry offers immediately.

It makes Louis chuckle, though. “You really need to stop that.”

“What?”

“Trying to give me everything I ask and don’t ask for,” he clarifies with a small smile that doesn’t stay.

Harry hesitates. “Do you want me to?”

“No,” Louis tells him as he searches Harry’s eyes and takes a step closer, and Harry tries not to pay attention to a man that walks up the stairs past them with a curious glance their way. “I really do have family waiting at home for me with cake, though, so . . . okay. I’ll wait until then.”

His heart’s been kicked to the ground beneath his feet by the throbbing pang that hits his whole chest area.

At least he can say he tried.

Swallowing his emotions, he quietly says, “Okay.”

He watches Louis pick his overnight bag back up and move his feet up the steps, and his mouth opens on its own.

“But if you had the choice”—the words ring in the air, making Louis abruptly stop and look behind himself to Harry—“to stay . . . if you didn’t have to leave . . . would you?”

Louis stares at him, tears still staining the colour of his eyes and his cheeks.

“Yes,” he answers after his pause. “I’d stay.”

There’s no happily hidden meaning; it’s not a confirmed reciprocation of the feelings Harry buried behind his pride and let free; and it doesn’t tell him if he chose Harry, too. It’s ambiguous, but it sparks hope in the back of Harry’s mind, and that’s all he needs. It’s all Harry needs right now, because it beats any other option, and he knows it was probably the best thing he could’ve gotten out of this: Louis gave him a chance to fight, he listened and he didn’t turn him down.

It’s a victory for this moment.

 

 

Louis lets him take him to dinner.

Harry was planning to do this before everything happened, and he’s relieved he still can, but he decides to make a few adjustments to the plan. Instead of eight o’clock, he makes the earliest reservation and has the concierge help. And in between the hours of returning and waiting for it, it’s painfully quiet. Harry sits on a lone chair to the opposite side of the settee Louis occupies as they watch a French programme, oddly reminiscent of yesterday night — a feeling that feels like a long time ago — and they don’t speak.

Harry repeatedly glances at Louis, but he never finds Louis staring back.

As soon as the hotel room phone rings around 6.30, he knows it’s the concierge calling to let him know their ride has arrived, and his chest fills with overwhelming heat when he tells Louis and they make their way out.

Louis pauses when they exit the doors of the hotel and sees what’s awaiting them.

“You rented a limousine?” Louis questions when he turns to look at Harry with an unreadable expression.

Harry nods. “Yeah.”

Louis walks right up to it, and the chauffeur automatically opens the door for him. Harry follows suit, and mumbles his thanks as he ducks in and chooses a seat closer to Louis, who’s off touching every and any thing, examining it with his gaze and testing the cushions with his bum. It’s almost as if he’s never been in one before, which is far from reality, but Harry sits quietly and watches him look through the mini refrigerator near them and nibble on a small bag of nuts he finds.

He offers Harry some, but Harry politely turns it down.

Dinner isn’t any better with the silence.

The thing is it’s never awkward between them; but the silence is so tense at moments, and other times it’s merely bearable.

Harry’s not sure what to do except ply himself _and_ Louis with alcohol and make comments in hopes of something. Louis’s such a lightweight that just after a glass and a half, he’s happier and giggling at things.

Harry doesn’t _have_ to talk because Louis starts doing all of it himself.

“—and then Ollie’s like, ‘mate, that’s not a good idea,’ and he only says that because he’s a stickler sometimes and doesn’t know how to have fun, so, I tell him to shove it because ordering a whole collection of antique lamps and some matching curtains online isn’t that bad. But now I don’t have many places to put them all, and whenever he comes over, he complains I have a house that belongs to a _nan_ , which is an exaggeration—”

Harry has absolutely no idea how this story relates to anything.

But it calms the tense air between them, nevertheless.

Louis makes it halfway through his fourth drink before they leave, and Harry guides him back to the limousine with a hand to his lower back. He sits very close to Harry on the ride to the hotel, thigh touching thigh, with his hands together in his lap.

He doesn’t say anything, but he stares at Harry the entire time.

All it does is make Harry nervous, to be honest.

In the lobby, he makes a scene and he won’t listen to Harry, so, Harry has no choice but to throw him over his shoulder and take him up the stairs before they attract any more unwanted attention from other guests and employees. Louis’s empty threats don’t bother him whatsoever, but they make him smile; and when they’re in their room, he gently dumps him onto the bed on his back and moves away.

“It’s my birthday, you know,” Louis says, voice muffled when he rolls over to bury his face into the duvet. “You could be nicer.”

“It’s my birthday, you know,” Harry mocks under his breath as he shucks his coat off.

Louis lifts his head up. “I can hear you.”

“I’m aware, darling.”

Louis squints his eyes, then shifts himself into a sitting position, so, that he can stand up and walk over to Harry to poke him in the chest. “I want the Harry from this morning back,” he complains.

“ _That_ Harry didn’t have to carry you up the stairs,” Harry points out.

“At least he was kind,” Louis counters, walking his fingers up Harry’s chest. His eyes fall what Harry assumes to be on his biceps, and a secretive smirk comes out to play — a special, devious one that occurs whenever he’s drunk or has a plan in mind. Or both simultaneously. “Actually, I like when you carry me. You’re so strong, and it makes your muscles bulge. It’s hot.”

Sighing, he lifts his hands and cages a giggling Louis’s between his own to halt his touching. He looks him in the eye with raised brows. “Stop,” he orders gently. “You’re not sober.”

It quiets Louis’s giggles.

They stare at each other in silence, and there’s something about the way Louis begins to look at him, the silver emotion coming to the surface, that fills the stillness with hauntings of the memories from earlier today. Harry hears his own weighted confession in his head, a flush of partial discomfort from how uncharacteristically open he’d been running around his chest, and lets go of Louis’s hand and tries to show indifference by not breaking eye contact first.

Louis’s the one to break.

He takes a step back with a slight shake of his head. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“For what?” Harry says. “You’ve nothing to apologise for.”

Louis breathes out a defeated, resigned breath and returns his gaze to Harry. “I’ve gotten myself drunk, and I’m making inappropriate jokes, all because I don’t know how to fucking handle this,” he confesses, helpless and eyes shining. “I should know _how_ to do this because I’m an adult; I should know how to talk about this, but I don’t. I don’t know what to say to you. Your words just keep _ringing_ in my ears, and I feel like I owe it to you to say something back—

“—but every time I try, I’m scared all of it will be for nothing — that if what I say transpires into what I think it could, and down the short road, it all goes to shit, it will have been for possibly nothing. And I don’t have it in me to not ever hear you call me ever again — even _when_ I’m feeling like you won’t even call me after today. Do you understand my dilemma?”

Harry swallows a lump and his racing heart. “I do,” he replies.

He understands it too well.

Another short, soft breath falls from Louis’s lips as he looks away.

Harry’s eyes become attached to the stationery on the stand next to the bed, and he thinks of all the times he’s tried writing to Louis; the times over their time apart where he picked up a pen with his heart’s intention to convey this long message of how sick he was of every big and small thing that was wrong between them, because he couldn’t say it out loud, then got frustrated and ripped it, balled it up, threw it in the rubbish.

It all comes back to him, and it makes him bold.

“What made you say you’d stay, then?”

Louis’s gaze returns to him, and his throat muscles constrict in a strained emotion before it’s all released and he looks resigned.

“You said you loved me,” he answers simply.

Harry blinks.

Then, swallowing and looking away, he responds ever so nonchalantly, “Well. Had I known that was the key to you staying, I would’ve told you a very, very long time ago.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

Taken aback, Harry looks up with narrowed brows.

“Not in the way I’d need,” Louis clarifies. “Not in the way you did today.”

His words are sure, but not insulting nor insinuating.

“All right,” Harry mumbles, unsure.

“I wasn’t going to stay no matter what you said,” Louis continues, playing with the skin between his fingers as he still stares at Harry, “not even if you planned something so elaborate and extravagant. It didn’t matter.

“But then you essentially said, ‘I love you,’ and I thought I was losing my head for a second — because I never imagined you ever saying that to me in the way I’ve wanted for a long time. And it made me rethink . . . maybe I don’t have to worry about being selfish anymore. So, I know that’s contradictory — that I’d stay for the same reasons I was leaving for — but if you love me even a quarter as much as I love you, then . . . maybe it could be fixed.”

Harry’s heart is racing hotly in his chest as he stares, frozen in spot, at Louis. “Are you serious?”

Louis nods, smile feeble.

“Of course I am,” he says with no room to doubt. “I’m in love with you, Harry.”

There’s so much blood running through Harry he’s not sure what to do. “What happens now, then?” he asks, needing more clarification.

Louis doesn’t answer right away.

“I meant what I said earlier,” he states softly, walking over to stand in front of Harry and placing a gentle hand on his, “about this ruining us and me not knowing who the person you are now is. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna try; it’s just about relearning and letting time heal everything, because even if this all goes to shit—even if we’re still miserable and we find ourselves right back at the beginning, at least we gave it all we had.”

Harry searches his face and only finds honest earnestness in his eyes, and it’s enough for right now.

“Okay,” he says, as if it’s simple as breathing. “I’d like to try, too.”

Louis breaks out into a smile almost immediately.

“Really?”

“Really,” Harry parrots back, smiling, too.

There’s silence for all of five seconds.

“That just now was probably the easiest part of this entire day,” Louis comments, tone on the wry side, and Harry laughs.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a nod. “You’re not wrong.”

Lifting his hands to cup the sides of Louis’s face, lightly running his thumbs along the high points of his cheeks, Harry takes this small window of opportunity to lean forward and kiss him. Their mouths are gentle and soft with each other, as if tenderness is the right gift to a day as conflicting as theirs, and a feeling both hot and cold run down along his breast bone, both cooling and overheating his heart in the same beat.

He pulls back to give Louis a shy smile, eyes briefly falling and meeting Louis’s again. “I really am sorry this wasn’t the greatest birthday for you,” he apologises.

Louis shakes his head, covering one of Harry’s hands with his own.

“I don’t care,” he dismisses. “It’s ending okay, isn’t it?”

Harry nods after a moment, then an idea pops in his head more or less right as he does, and he tells Louis to stay right here while he walks over to the stand by the bed that has the stationery and picks up the phone. He sees Louis’s eyes widen, eyebrows narrow, and mouthing _What?_ when Harry gives a specific order of eight bottles of the same champagne Louis and himself drank last night.

“ _Eight_?” Louis questions incredulously when Harry hangs up. “They’re going to think we’re alcoholics.”

“They probably already do,” Harry says.

Louis rolls his eyes. “Why so many, anyway?”

“You’ll see, baby.”

Minutes later, a knock comes, and Harry gets the door. He has to appease the concerned staff member by showing him I.D. and telling him in a hushed voice they’re going to be hardly drinking any of it, which relieves the person. Then, as the door closes, he walks backwards as he pulls the heavy trolley along.

“You realise we’ll _die_ if we drink all of this, right?” Louis says as he follows.

Harry smiles as he looks back to check for a wall. “Oh, darn,” he says, flat and dry.

Louis snorts.

They make it to the bathroom, and Harry pulls the trolley to a stop by the side of the tub without breaking a sweat. He pulls a bottle from one of the two buckets filled with ice, and turns around to look at Louis with a raised brow.

“Want a glass?”

“No, thanks,” Louis kindly rejects. “I’m pretty sober.”

Harry pops it open with a supplied corkscrew and takes a big gulp before walking to the tub and tipping the bottle to pour all its contents into it.

“ _Harry_ , what the bloody hell are you doing?”

“Well,” he begins casually, sitting down on the ledge, “guess.”

“I suck at guessing.”

There’s an innuendo in there somewhere.

“It’s one of the three things I promised you,” he hints.

“One of the three— _what_?”

Harry lets him figure it out as he gets up with his drained champagne bottle and exchanges it for a second one, unscrewing it and sitting back down on the edge of the tub to pour it all in once again. He looks at an imaginary watch on his wrist and mimics _Jeopardy!_ thinking music.

“Wait,” Louis says suddenly, quieting Harry, “you were being _literal_ when you said you were gonna bathe me in champagne?”

“Not until twenty minutes ago.”

“Harry—”

Harry looks up. “Hey, you don’t have to,” he tells him. “I could just swim in this by myself, listen to some Frank Sinatra. But, you know . . . I thought we could do this together. And you could ride me. You know. If you wanted.”

Louis’s brows raise in interest. “Ride you?”

“Yeah,” Harry says with a shrug as the bottle empties. “It’s optional. Like. A last birthday thing.”

“In a tub full of champagne,” he muses.

They’ve had a lot of kink heavy sex in the past. If one suggests trying something out, they usually do; and if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. It’s happened a few times. But they’re a try-it-once bunch, and they’re big on unconventional positions, as well, so, when Louis agrees, Harry smiles and tells him to get the lube while he finishes filling the tub.

Eight bottles only fill to just below the halfway line.

It’s not as much as he wanted, but it’ll do. They’ll be moving around a lot, and if it’s high, then it’ll only splash everywhere.

“All right,” he pants as he pushes the trolley out of the room.

Louis quirks a brow. “Tired already, old man?”

“In your dreams,” Harry says, patting his bum. “It’s tiring to just keep my arm still in the air for ten minutes straight to empty those bottles. They’re heavy and made of glass.”

“Just admit that you don’t work out anymore,” Louis says, striping himself of his shirt and his trousers.

Harry furrows his eyebrows playfully.

“Hey,” he protests, “I do work out.”

“When was the last time?”

“Just the other night,” Harry answers. “You know. When you _ambushed_ me with your sex agenda. _Twice_.”

Louis starts laughing, eyes becoming smaller the wider his smile is.

“There was _no_ fucking sex agenda,” he denies.

Harry steps close to him with a doubtful look. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Louis says, still smiling and chuckling, and Harry can’t help smiling. “They just _happened_ to be the most convenient times I could catch you off guard. _Also_ ”—he pokes Harry in the chest, looking up at him—“technically, I only cornered you once. You practically threw yourself at me the first time and couldn’t get me to bed first before you fingered me.”

“That’s a bold accusation, darling,” Harry says, laughing.

“It’s _literally_ what happened.”

“Don’t act like you don’t want me to bend you over and do it again, _mon ange_ ,” he says. “I’d gladly.”

Louis’s gaze falls slowly from his face to his chest, to all the way down his body, before he licks his lips and swallows, looking up to meet his meet Harry’s eyes again. “Let’s just—do this. Okay?” he says with raised brows, and steps away to take off his briefs.

Harry smirks.

After undressing, he steps into the bath with a slight hiss at the cold contact, then settles himself at a comfortable, slouched position, feet pressed to the bottom with his legs spread and knees against the sides, exposed to the chilly drift in the air. The smell of champagne is strong with each intake of breath, and it doesn’t lessen with each additional inhale he tries to breathe in for his lungs to adjust to; and the light, pale tints to its colour wash and splash against his skin prettily and in a strangely elegant manner. He looks up to see Louis standing there with hands on his hips, looking over Harry with intent, wandering eyes.

His thick, pretty cock has chubbed up in interest, and if he weren’t out of reach, Harry would lift his hand and stroke him with a slow, gentle hand to both tease him and coax him to the edge, only to deny him.

“Well? Get in,” Harry demands with a quirked brow.

Louis waves a hand at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles as he dips a tentative foot in, the champagne moving all around in response to Louis trying to situate himself. Harry lifts his wet arms up to grip the edges of the tub in order to create more room, and twists his torso to side to side to allow Louis to place his feet next to him, and he happily manages to sit on Harry’s stomach. “Okay. Better.”

Harry drops his right hand to Louis’s bum, and pats him. “Good. Lube?”

Louis lights up in remembrance, and Harry bites back a remark as he leans over the tub to retrieve it from the ground. He carelessly drops it to Harry’s chest, and patiently looks at him as he leans slightly forward and arches his back enough to send a silent plea, hands placed on Harry’s pecs for balance.

Harry takes it and pours it onto two of his fingers, rubbing them together and then reaching behind Louis and spreading his cheeks apart with his clean hand and other clean fingers. He gently trails his fingers along the inside, teasing, until he comes to what he needs, and eases his index in the tight, warm hole. Louis’s abs jump, and his throat muscles constrict, both in a silent breath of anticipation. His breath hitches with each sudden jab Harry purposely makes, just to see him react, and sinks deeper, so, Louis’s nails subconsciously dig deeper into his pec.

Harry doesn’t take his eyes off him the entire time.

Louis pulls his bottom lip into his mouth when he gives him a second finger. “ _Uh_ —fuck,” he curses quietly, when Harry spreads him further and goes as deep and close as his third knuckle allows.

He’s set a smooth rhythm now, and Louis’s arching his arse higher, trying to spread his legs farther apart, as he tends to do the more turned on he becomes. Harry’s cock is throbbing and twitching at the small sounds he’s making — the _uh_ s and the high and low sounds being ripped from the back parts of his throat — and he feels a a small blurt of wetness at his tip.

Just when he’s sure Louis’s going to open his mouth and beg, he stops. That seems to wake Louis up a little.

“You think you’re good, baby?” Harry asks, voice notably rougher.

Blinking a few times, seeming to pull himself together, Louis nods. “Yeah,” he says, sounding breathless. He fixes his posture and removes his hand from Harry’s pec to reach behind himself to grip his dick.

Harry groans at the contact.

His cold hand feels so relieving to be wrapped around the overwhelming warmth that fills his cock. He has to refrains himself from fucking up into it, even just a small bit, and focuses his energy into spreading lube all over his cock and his fingers leaving prints into Louis’s arse cheeks from his harsh grip. Louis releases a small gasp when Harry’s tip makes it past his rim, and Harry’s breathing becomes heavier the deeper Louis pushes his cock in.

He can’t imagine how full Louis must be feeling when he’s feeling oddly like that himself — like his cock’s encompassed in something tight but infinite.

“Y’all right?” he asks when Louis just sits there for a while.

Louis nods, briefly closing his eyes.

“Yeah,” he exhales, “mm—you’re just. Big.”

Harry starts to smile, but he gets Louis’s eyes rolled at him.

“What?”

“Don’t start getting arrogant,” Louis says as he shifts, wincing slightly, “or I’ll knock your head down a few sizes by telling you that you don’t know how to use your dick properly and then get myself off with my fingers in front of you.”

Harry jerks his hips up, hitting a sweet spot that makes Louis gasp loudly, his eyes flutter and clutch Harry.

“Use it yourself, then, _ch_ _éri_ ,” Harry says as he relaxes his head back. “I’ll just watch.”

Louis’s glaring at him through hooded eyes, somehow, and he looks to be about to protest, to fight. But Harry arches an eyebrow, and it must be enough of a challenge to set Louis off because he visibly settles and starts to lift his hips. He can’t back down from a challenge Harry ever sets for him. Keeping a hand at the base of Harry, he lifts until he could almost slip out, and then takes Harry all the way down again, slow and sure. He repeats it again, and again, and builds a pace that becomes so second nature he’s bouncing in no time.

Harry lays there with hands behind his head, pretending he isn’t affected by the little sounds Louis’s making; his breathing that keeps jumping and stuttering; his soft, clear and clean shaven cheeks flushing a colour reminiscent of pink tulips.

“ _Ah_ —God,” Louis moans at a particular thrust.

He loses his easy bounce because of it, panting.

Harry shifts his legs and back, removing his arms from behind his head to hold onto Louis’s waist. He fucks up into him faster than he’d been able to go, and ignores the uncomfortable ache in his neck. Moaning out about something relating to God, Louis falls forward onto Harry’s chest, hiding his face as he bites onto some skin he finds and moans — as if he’s accepted some sort of defeat. The angle makes Harry’s thrusts deeper, has his mouth falling open in heavy pants as he chases the feeling growing in his stomach and balls; and each one has Louis’s whines growing higher, constant and desperate — so desperate it sounds as if he’s crying, which only fuels the feeling inside him.

Harry feels it suddenly on his stomach, then, with the telling way Louis’s voice cuts off so abruptly and the tight way he clenches Harry’s cock.

Louis has come.

He fucks him through it, hard as he can in this bathtub and at this angle without further hurting his back and accidentally splashing a lot of champagne in Louis’s face, and within seconds he feels his come begin to spit from his tip inside Louis and spill out, and he groans and stops. They lay there in silence for many moments before Louis reaches behind himself to gently ease Harry’s softening dick out of him.

Harry grunts in response, but otherwise let’s him do as he pleases.

“Nice teamwork,” Louis mumbles with a pat to Harry’s shoulder as he moves closer up and nuzzles his face into the side of his neck.

Harry chuckles weakly, and wraps his arms around his waist.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Now, you have to wash me,” he tells Harry.

“With champagne, I hope?” Harry says.

Louis scoffs. “ _No_ ,” he says. “With soap. I’m tired of your come making a mess of me.”

“That would mean I’d have to empty all this champagne and refill this tub,” Harry tells him. He gets a grunt. “That means we have to move.”

A pause.

“Maybe you can wash me another time, then,” Louis says tiredly.

Harry turns his nose into Louis’s temples with a small, soft smile, and kisses him there. He closes his eyes, inhaling the smell of Louis, the strong alcohol smell, and allowing the come and lube on various parts of himself to dry as his ears and heart soak up the calm silence. But with eyes then fluttering open, a second later, he whispers, “Hey. Would it be okay if I came with you?”

He gets a delayed soft humming from Louis. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

Harry leans his head against the tub and closes his eyes.

Here’s to trying.

**Author's Note:**

> guy puckering his lips and turning away as he shakes his head.gif 
> 
> next fic i post will either be like one of my really long ones that's currently in progress w/ a lot of plot or another short one. we'll see who wins
> 
>  [tumblr](http://tllthesundies.tumblr.com) | [tw](https://twitter.com/tiIthesundies)


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